Law: Pakistan Penal Code, 1860

Section: 109

(a) Criminal trial-Evidence-Alibi plea considered Proved as to two of the accused-Whether evidence of eye-witnesses could on that account alone be rejected also against the others Generally when it is proved that some innocent persons have been dishonestly implicated in a crime, the Court is entitled, and it is safer to acquit even those who have not been able to prove that they were falsely implicated. The rule, however, is not absolute, and its indiscriminate application in this Province is as dangerous to the administration of criminal justice as the general application of the contrary rule that in such cases the only persons against whom the evidence of the witnesses may be rejected are those who succeed in proving their innocence. If there bad been no circumstances tending clearly to show that, the witnesses saw the murders, it would have been the Court's duty to hold that, because they named two of the accused who had succeeded in proving their plea of alibi they did not see the occurrence and thus to acquit the whole lot. The same would have been the result, if there had been no other evidence against any one of the appellants tending to show that he did take part in the murders. (Per Muhammad Munir, C. J.)-Judges with vast and intimate experience of the administration of criminal justice in this country have often felt that where falsehood has been intentionally mixed with truth, they are under no obligation to winnow the grain of truth from the chaff of falsehood. Others with equal experience and keen insight into the character and mentality of witnesses who generally give evidence in criminal cases in this Province have emphasised the grave danger of miscarriage of justice if oral evidence were judged by the maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, and have considered proof of perjury on a material point by itself not to be a sufficient reason to reject that portion of the evidence which appears to be true. There are other observations on the subject, some plain in language and idea ; others forceful epigrams, such as that false evidence can never be corroborated, that zero added to a quantity adds n3thing to that quantity and that whatever quantity be…

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