Testimony of Witness cannot be discarded in toto merely due to embellishments or exaggerations, SC

The Supreme Court has reiterated the well-settled position of law that the testimony of a witness cannot be discarded in toto merely due to the presence of embellishments or exaggerations in such testimony..A Bench of Justices NV Ramana and Mohan M Shantanagoudar held that the doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means “false in one thing, false in everything” is inapplicable in the Indian scenario..The judgment was rendered in the case of Menoka Malik v. State of West Bengal, an appeal against a judgment of Calcutta High Court which had acquitted eighty-two CPI (M) members for the murder of five persons of IPF Party..It was the case of the prosecution that the persons belonging to CPI (M) party had set on fire, the houses of IPF members, including the party leader Badal Malik, assaulted IPF members and broke into the houses in the locality. In the assault on IPF members, five persons expired and twenty-four persons were seriously injured..Charges were framed for offences punishable under Sections 147, 148, 149, 342, 448, 325, 326, 436, 379, 307 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Eighty-two accused were tried. Forty-nine witnesses were examined by the prosecution, which included thirty-six eye witnesses..The trial Court, at the outset, determined that there were cogent allegations only against thirty-two persons out of the eighty-two accused and proceeded to examine the evidence against those thirty-two persons only. On evaluation of the material on record, the trial court acquitted all the accused by giving them the benefit of doubt..The High Court upheld the same leading to the appeal in Supreme Court..The Supreme Court in its judgment noted that the trial court, while coming to its conclusion, had observed that several eye witnesses had revealed the material facts before the trial court for the first time, inasmuch as such statements of the witnesses before the court are material improvements; such statements were not made by the witnesses during the course of investigation before the police officials and omissions are proved as per law..The Supreme Court, therefore, proceeded to revisit the statements of three prosecution witnesses as examples. Analysing the same, it came to the conclusion that there was no significant variation or contradiction in their testimonies..It is but natural to have certain minor variations in the evidence of eyewitnesses, when a large number of people had gathered to assault a smaller group of people and which resulted in the death of five persons and injuries to twenty-four persons. In such a scenario, it could not have been possible to meticulously observe all the actions of each and every accused, the court stated..“The Court should not expect from the witnesses to depose in a parrotlike fashion.”.The Court then reiterated that it is a well-settled position of law that the testimony of a witness cannot be discarded in toto merely due to the presence of embellishments or exaggerations..It also stated that the doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means “false in one thing, false in everything” has been held to be inapplicable in the Indian scenario, where the tendency to exaggerate is common..“This Court has endorsed the inapplicability of the doctrine in several decisions, such as Nisar Ali v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1957 SC 366, Ugar Ahir v. State of Bihar, AIR 1965 SC 277, Sucha Singh v. State of Punjab, (2003) 7 SCC 643, Narain v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2004) 2 SCC 455 and Kameshwar Singh v. State of Bihar, (2018) 6 SCC 433”..It was, therefore, the Court’s conclusion that the High Court failed to consider whether the trial court discarded material evidence in the form of eyewitness testimony..It, thus, remitted the matter back to the High Court to decide the revision petition on merits..Read the judgment below.