Published on: November 22, 2023 at 00:09 IST
Court: Supreme Court of India
Citation: Manjunath V. State of Karnataka (2023)
Honourable Supreme Court of India has held that a “sterling witness” should be of very high quality and caliber whose version should, therefore, be unassailable. The court considering the version of such witness should be in a position to accept it for its face value without any hesitation. To test the quality of such a witness, the status of the witness would be immaterial and what would be relevant is the truthfulness of the statement made by such a witness. It is held that more relevant would be the consistency of the statement right from the starting point till the end, namely, at the time when the witness makes the initial statement and ultimately before the court.
19. The reason for the non-examination of the scribe, however, does not bear itself. Nowhere has it been stated, either by the trial court or the High Court that scribe could not be examined for which or what particular reason. In Sudhakar (supra) this Court has held that if the original dying declaration is lost and therefore not available, the prosecution could adduce secondary evidence in support thereof. The logical extension of such holding would be that, if the scribe, for reasons beyond control, such as incapacitation or death, would be unavailable, it would be open for the prosecution to take necessary aid of secondary evidence.
That not being the case however, such unexplained non-examination would, as a consequence of the holdings in Govind Narain (supra), Kans Raj (supra) and Sudhakar (supra), render the case to be doubtful if not, land a fatal blow to the prosecution case.
Drafted By Abhijit Mishra