Conviction based solely on testimony of interested witnesses without corroboration unsustainable: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday held that conviction of accused purely based on the oral testimony of interested witnesses, without sufficient corroboration, would not be sustainable [Nand Lal v State of Chhattisgarh]..A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol made the observation while setting aside a judgment of the Chhattisgarh High Court which upheld the conviction and sentence of life imprisonment handed down to three appellants along with other accused for the offence of murder.“Taking into consideration the delay in lodging the FIR, with the circumstance of their names not being mentioned in the contemporaneous documents, the possibility of the said accused being falsely implicated cannot be ruled out”, the bench reasoned. .The appellants, along with others, were accused of entering the house of the deceased armed with deadly weapons, having formed an unlawful assembly and assaulting him, which led to his death. .The appellants before the top court argued that their names had not been mentioned in any of the documents such as the merg panchnama, inquest panchnama and spot panchnama whereas the names of other accused were mentioned. They also highlighted that the inordinate delay in registering the First Information Report (FIR) had not been explained by the prosecution.According to the appellants, the conviction was purely on the basis of interested witnesses whose testimony was not trustworthy and therefore, was not sustainable unless there was corroboration of their testimony. .The prosecution, on the contrary, submitted that all three eyewitnesses had clearly implicated the appellants. It was also stated that merely because the witnesses were interested witnesses cannot be ground to discard their testimonies as long as their evidence was found to be trustworthy, reliable and cogent. The argument as to delay in lodging the FIR was also rebutted by the prosecution which said that it was not a strong ground since their case had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt..While examining the issues, the bench said that in cases where evidence from witnesses is partly reliable and partly unreliable, the Court is required to be circumspect and separate the chaff from the grain to seek further corroboration from reliable testimony. Considering the lack of corroboration in the case at hand, the court set aside the decision of the High Court as well as the trial court and acquitted the appellants.Advocate Vikas Upadhyay appeared for appellant-accused. Advocate Renjith B Marar served as amicus curiae.Advocate Sumeer Sodhi represented the respondent-State.[Read Judgment]