Supreme Court on Testimony of Injured Eye-Witness

INTRODUCTION

 

Today we will talk about the case of Lakshman Singh v. State of Bihar (now Jharkhand), Criminal Appeal No. 606 of 2021, wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court inter alia discussed the importance of testimony of injured eyewitnesses in criminal cases.

 

Though the facts of the case are not relevant for the purposes of this Show, yet briefly speaking, the instant case involved an unlawful assembly and rioting. Many persons were injured, and the Supreme Court discussed the evidentiary value of their statements while upholding the conviction of the accused persons.

 

In order to understand the matter in a better manner, let us go through the pertinent observations by the Court.

 

OBSERVATIONS BY THE COURT

 

Firstly, the Court observed that the presence of injured eyewitnesses at the place of rioting is natural and once their presence has been established by the Prosecution, then due weightage must be given to their testimonies.

 

Secondly, the Court cited the case of State of MP v. Mansingh, (2003) 10 SCC 414, wherein it was held that the evidentiary value of testimonies of injured witnesses rests on a high pedestal and unless cogent reasons exist to discard their testimonies, “minor discrepancies do not corrode the credibility of an otherwise acceptable evidence.”

 

Thirdly, the Court also cited the case of Abdul Sayeed v. State of MP, (2010) 10 SCC 259, to explain the reliability of injured witnesses by quoting that “where witness to occurrence was himself injured in the incident, testimony of such witness is generally considered to be very reliable, as he is a witness that comes with an inbuilt guarantee of his presence at the scene of crime and is unlikely to spare his actual assailant(s) in order to falsely implicate someone”.

 

Fourthly, the Court observed that when the presence of injured witnesses at the time and place of occurrence of the alleged crime cannot be doubted then convincing grounds must be brought forth to discard their evidence.

 

Fifthly, the Court discussed that in cases where there is a large crowd of assailants that performed the alleged crime in a matter of minutes, the exact version of the incident “involving meticulous exactitude of individual acts” is not expected to be given by the eyewitnesses as in such a scenario, it is difficult for the witnesses to specifically identify each assailant attributing a specific role to him.

 

HELD BY THE COURT

 

Therefore, the Court relied upon the testimonies of injured eyewitnesses and upheld the conviction of the accused persons. There were other aspects of criminal law discussed in this case that we shall discuss in the next post.

 

CONCLUSION

 

In conclusion, it could be said that the logic of the Courts is that an injured eyewitness would not generally lie as rather than falsely implicating random persons, he would like to see his actual assailants behind the bars. Such reasoning is sound and becomes pertinent all the more in cases where there are multiple injured eyewitnesses, and their testimonies are not contradictory. Rules of Evidence are based on logic and the Courts often adopt such rules to winnow the grain from the chaff.