Apex Court modifies order of conviction upon noticing contradiction between oral testimony of witnesses and medical evidence

Read Judgment: Viram @ Virma vs. State Of Madhya Pradesh

Pankaj Bajpai

New Delhi, November 25, 2021: The Supreme Court has opined that the evidence of the witness which is totally inconsistent with the medical evidence would be sufficient to discredit the entire prosecution case.  

A Division Bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice B.V. Nagarathna therefore observed that although the fatal injury was caused by a hard & blunt weapon on the left parietal bone, there was no corresponding injury to the weapons used by the accused. 

The background of the case was that on the oral report given by Solal (tenth prosecution witness), an FIR came to be registered at M.P Police Station, wherein it was stated that there was an altercation between Babulal Lodha and Shankarlal (eleventh prosecution witness) with Shriram and others during the day time, way back in the year 1995. Resultantly, after sunset, the prosecution witnesses were attacked with spear and sword. When other prosecution witnesses rushed for their rescue, the accused attackers assaulted the informant and others and inflicted injuries on their body parts. Accordingly, Viram @ Virma (Appellants) were charged u/s 302 and 324 IPC, or alternatively u/s 147, 302/149, 324/149, 329/149 IPC. 

On a consideration of the evidence adduced by the prosecution, the Trial Court held the accused guilty of committing offences u/s 147, 302/149 for committing murder of Babulal and u/s 325/149, 324/149, 323/149 for voluntarily causing hurt to other prosecution witnesses. The accused were also sentenced to life imprisonment. 

Even though the Trial Court noticed that except Shankarlal, the other witnesses reached the place of occurrence after the accused assaulted Babulal and Shankarlal, however, the Trial Court found that the oral testimony of Shankarlal was creditworthy and there was sufficient corroboration from the ocular evidence of the other injured witnesses. The Trial Court observed that the inconsistencies in the testimonies of the injured eye-witnesses are trivial and their evidence cannot be rejected on that ground.

According to the Trial Court, a cumulative reading of the oral testimony of the injured eyewitnesses conclusively proved that the accused inflicted a fatal injury on the head of the deceased. 

When the matter reached High Court, the order of Trial Court was upheld and it was held that the discrepancies in the statements made by the witnesses in Court were minor in nature on the basis of which the Appellants cannot be said to be not guilty. 

After considering the arguments, the Top Court found that the death of deceased Babulal was caused due to the attack by the Appellants. 

However, the submission of the Appellants that there was a contradiction in the oral testimonies and the medical evidence required consideration, added the Court. 

The Apex Court further found that the eleventh prosecution witness Shankarlal who waa an injured witness stated that he had seen the accused persons beating the deceased Babulal, and according to him, Shriram (twentieth accused) gave a sword blow on the head of Babulal.

Speaking for the Bench, Justice Rao noted that when confronted with the statement recorded by the Police u/s 161 CrPC, the prosecution witness submitted that he had stated to the Police about the covert acts and he was not aware as to why this had not been mentioned in his statement. 

The other witnesses corroborated the statement of eleventh prosecution witness and also spoke about the injuries caused to them by the Appellants, and apart from some minor aberrations in the testimony of the injured eyewitnesses, they were consistent in speaking about the weapons that were used by the accused, added the Bench. 

The Apex Court therefore partly allowed the appeal.