Law:

Section:

  Criminal trial-Evidence----Witnesses-Witnesses related to deceased and hostile to accused being themselves on terms of serious enmity with them-Testimony requires close scrutiny Evidence of witnesses found to be true and corroborated by other evidence Not to be rejected merely because it was partisan.   Criminal trial----Evidence-Veracity of witness's evidence Test.   The best test of the veracity of a witness's evidence in a criminal case is its own inherent value, checked on the tens that may be afforded by the circumstances of the case itself. It would be difficult to place reliance on a witness who may outwardly appear to be wholly independent but whose testimony may be found to falter on such tests and similarly the evidence of a relation-witness or a relation-cum-hostile witness may induce conviction and may be acceptable as evidence of truth if it stands the test of veracity. Exaggerations and embellishments can be condoned up to a degree but care has to be taken that they do not go to the length of weaving a web of multi-colour threads which get inextricably knit up and it becomes difficult to separate one from the other, and to unravel the knots, without destroying the whole web. In the administration of criminal justice the worst headache for a Judge is created when innocent persons are roped in along with the guilty and the direct evidence unscrupulously charges them all in the same breath. If the circumstantial evidence in a case affords no help to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent and the Judge becomes helpless in that determination, the whole evidence will have to be discarded. But in this country where standard of truthfulness on the part of witnesses who are normally drawn in criminal cases is yet to reach a desirable height, evidence of a witness should not be totally rejected unless on considerations commonly employed for jbdging judicial testimony, it becomes difficult to accept any part of it with easy mind.   Evidence-----Tracker-Evidence of experienced tracker based on reasons and comparisons tested by Court's own observations and accepted-Not without considerable value.   The evidence…