SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Jakki @ Selvaraj & Anr.
Vs.
State
Crl.A.No.205 of 2007
(Arijit Pasayat and S.H.Kapadia,JJ.,)
14.02.2007
JUDGMENT
Dr. Arijit Pasayat, J.
SLP.(Crl.)No.4768 of 2006
1. Leave granted.
2. Appellants call in question legality of the judgment rendered by a Division
Bench of the Madras High Court upholding the conviction of the appellants for
the offence punishable under Sections 148 and 302 of the Indian Penal
Code, 1860 (in short the 'IPC'), while setting aside conviction of four
co-accused persons who had been convicted by the trial Court.
3. Prosecution version in a nutshell is as follows:
“There was a difference between the six accused persons who belong to Hindu
People Party on one hand and Suresh (hereinafter referred to as the 'deceased')
and witness Ananthan (PW-1) who belong to Hindu Munnani Party. On account of
this difference on 14.8.2001 Ananthan (PW-1) and some others had beaten up
Senthil Kumar (A-3) and on 25.8.2001 said Ananthan (PW-1) and the deceased had
restrained accused persons 1 to 5 from participating in the ritual competition
of climbing a tree on Vinayargar Chaturti Function. On 30.8.2001, around 4.45
p.m. with an intention of killing Ananthan (PW-1) and the deceased, all the six
accused persons unlawfully assembled at a particular place armed with dangerous
weapons and assaulted the deceased. Accused Nos.1 and 2 i.e. present appellants
called out Ananthan and chased him but he managed to escape. But that did not
deter the appellants who attacked the deceased at around 5.00 p.m. in a garden
and he lost his life because of the assaults.“
4. The investigation was taken up by the Police officers and on completion of investigation charge sheet was placed. The accused persons pleaded innocence and false implication and claimed to be tried. In support of the prosecution version several witnesses were examined. The evidence of PWs 1, 2 and 13 was claimed to be of vital importance as they were described as eye witnesses. The trial Court found that PWs 1 and 2 resiled from the statements made by them during investigation. Relying on the evidence of PW-13 the conviction was recorded. A-1 to A-4 were convicted for offences punishable under Sections 148 and 302 Indian Penal Code, 1860 and A-5 to A-6 were convicted for offences punishable under Sections 147 and 302 Indian Penal Code, 1860 read with Section 149 Indian Penal Code, 1860. All the six accused persons who were convicted preferred an appeal before the High Court which by the impugned judgment directed acquittal of four of the accused persons while confirming the conviction of A1 and A2. It was held that though the evidence of PW-13 was held to be not reliable so far as the same related to A-3 to A-6, the same was sufficient to fashion guilt on the accused appellants. It was held that his evidence was credible and cogent so far as these two accused persons are concerned.
5. In support of the appeal, learned counsel for the appellants submitted that
when the evidence of PW-13 was held to be unworthy of credence for the
co-accused the same should not have been utilized for holding the appellants
guilty. With reference to the evidence of PWs 1 and 2 who were stated to be the
eye witnesses and who resiled from their statements during investigation, it was
submitted that because of admitted differences and disputes the appellants have
been falsely implicated.
6. Learned counsel for the respondent-State supported the impugned judgment.
“As noted above, stress was laid by the accused- appellants on the non-acceptance
of evidence tendered by PW- 13 to contend about desirability to throw out the
entire prosecution case. In essence the prayer is to apply the principle of
"falsus in uno falsus in omnibus" (false in one thing, false in
everything). This plea is clearly untenable. Even if major portion of evidence
is found to be deficient, in case residue is sufficient to prove guilt of an
accused, notwithstanding acquittal of number of other co-accused persons, his
conviction can be maintained. It is the duty of Court to separate the grain
from the chaff. Where the chaff can be separated from the grain, it would be
open to the Court to convict an accused notwithstanding the fact that evidence
has been found to be deficient to prove guilt of other accused persons. Falsity
of particular material witness or material particular would not ruin it from
the beginning to end. The maxim "falsus in uno falsus in omnibus" has
no application in India and the witnesses cannot be branded as liars. The maxim
"falsus in uno falsus in omnibus" has not received general acceptance
nor has this maxim come to occupy the status of a rule of law. It is merely a
rule of caution. All that it amounts to, is that in such cases testimony may be
disregarded, and not that it must be discarded. The doctrine merely involves
the question of weight of evidence which a Court may apply in a given set of
circumstances, but it is not what may be called 'a mandatory rule of evidence'.
(See Nisar Ali v. The State of Uttar Pradesh1
Merely because some of the accused persons have been acquitted, though evidence
against all of them, so far as direct testimony went, was the same does not
lead as a necessary corollary that those who have been convicted must also be
acquitted. It is always open to a Court to differentiate accused who had been
acquitted from those who were convicted. (See Gurcharan Singh and Anr.
v. State of Punjab2 (
 . The doctrine is a dangerous one specially in India for if a whole body
of the testimony was to be rejected, because a witness was evidently speaking
an untruth in some aspect, it is to be feared that administration of criminal
justice would come to a dead-stop. Witnesses just cannot help in giving
embroidery to a story, however true in the main. Therefore, it has to be
appraised in each case as to what extent the evidence is worthy of acceptance,
and merely because in some respects the Court considers the same to be
insufficient for placing reliance on the testimony of a witness, it does not
necessarily follow as a matter of law that it must be disregarded in all
respects as well. The evidence has to be sifted with care. The aforesaid dictum
is not a sound rule for the reason that one hardly comes across a witness whose
evidence does not contain a grain of untruth or at any rate exaggeration,
embroideries or embellishment. (See Sohrab s/o Beli Nayata and Anr. v. The
State of Madhya Pradesh3
and Ugar Ahir and Ors. v. The State of Bihar4. An
attempt has to be made to, as noted above, in terms of felicitous metaphor,
separate the grain from the chaff, truth from falsehood. Where it is not
feasible to separate truth from falsehood, because grain and chaff are
inextricably mixed up, and in the process of separation an absolutely new case
has to be reconstructed by divorcing essential details presented by the
prosecution completely from the context and the background against which they
are made, the only available course to be made is to discard the evidence in
toto. (See Zwinglee Ariel v. State of Madhya Pradesh5
and Balaka Singh and Ors. v. The State of Punjab6 .
As observed by this Court in State of Rajasthan v. Smt. Kalki and Anr.7 ,
normal discrepancies in evidence are those which are due to normal errors of
observation, normal errors of memory due to lapse of time, due to mental
disposition such as shock and horror at the time of occurrence and those are
always there, however honest and truthful a witness may be. Material
discrepancies are those which are not normal, and not expected of a normal
person. Courts have to label the category to which a discrepancy may be
categorized. While normal discrepancies do not corrode the credibility of a
party's case, material discrepancies do so. These aspects were highlighted in Krishna
Mochi and Ors. v. State of Bihar etc.8.
Applying the principles set out above, it is clear that even when the testimony
of a witness is discarded in part vis-'-vis some other co-accused persons, that
cannot per se be the reason to discard his evidence in toto. As rightly
observed by the trial Court and the High Court, the evidence of PW-13 has not
been shakened in any manner though he was cross examined at length.
Additionally, the trial Court and the High Court have found that the evidence
of the doctor (PW-4) clearly shows existence of injuries in the manner
described by PW-13 by weapons allegedly held by the appellants. In that view of
the matter, the judgment of the High Court does not suffer from any
infirmity. The appeal fails and is dismissed.
1AIR 1957 SC 0366
2AIR 1956 SC 0460
3(1972) 3 SCC 0751
4AIR 1965 SC 0277
5AIR 1954 SC 0015
6AIR 1975 SC 1962
7AIR 1981 SC 1390
8 JT 2002 (4) SC 0186