Law: Penal Code (XLV of 1860)

Section: S. 302

  Witness-Evidence regarding some detail, false-Whether whole deposition to be held unreliable.   Where a witness is proved to have given false evidence with regard to some detail, the whole of his deposition cannot be held to be unreliable. It would, however, depend on the circumstances of each case whether the false portion of the statement would suffice to make the entire statement of the witnesses unreliable for the purposes of the Court.   Where therefore, in a murder case the Sessions Judge had not relied on the statements of 3 eye-witnesses but had relied on the evidence of a fourth witness who amongst other things, had said that the three witnesses, whose evidence had not been relied upon, had also seen the occurrence, it was urged that the evidence of the fourth witness also should not have been relied upon:   Held, that the evidence of S could not be rejected merely because she had supported the false claim of the three witnesses that they had seen the occurrence.   Witness-Mere relationship with victim of crime-No ground for holding evidence false-Whether or not witness should be relied upon depends on circumstances of each case -Mere fact that witness is interested or inimically disposed towards accused No ground for discarding such witness's evidence.   The mere fact that a witness is related to the victim of a crime is no ground for holding that he had given false evidence though, as a matter of caution, Courts would generally require some corroboration of such a witness against au accused person if the witness happens to be related to the victim and there was some enmity between accused and the witness or the victim. The decision of the question whether or not a witness should be relied upon must depend on the circumstances of the case and the mere fact that the witness is interested, that is, that he had grounds for entertaining inimical feelings against an accused person cannot by itself be sufficient for throwing out his statement on the ground that it was unreliable.   Witness-Eye-witness, resident of place 2 miles away from place of occurrence, stating that he was present on spot because he possessed a…