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Synopsis

The Supreme Court recently said that previous enmity is a double-edged weapon, which on the one hand provides the motive, whereas on the other hand, opens the possibility of false implication, as it acquitted a man of the murder charges after finding two prosecution witnesses as wholly unreliable.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai, P S Narasimha and Aravind Kumar set free one Balaram who along with Rameshwar (since deceased) was held guilty by a sessions court in Bhind in a case related to gunning down one Ashok and firing a shot on his mother Ramkali.

The bench said that it found it difficult to accept the distinction drawn by the trial court while believing the testimony of Ramkali and her husband Mulchand so far as the appellants Balaram and Rameshwar were concerned. The trial court had acquitted another accused Uma Charan as it had disbelieved the testimony of both Ramkali and Mulchand, so it could not have applied a separate standard while considering the case of the present appellant-Balaram and Rameshwar, the top court said.

The bench further pointed out that even accepting Ramkali's testimony, it could be seen that the injury attributed to the appellant-Balaram was of assaulting her on her leg and not the deceased-Ashok.

With regard to the prosecution's claim of motive arising out of murder of Balaram's brother four-five years ago, the bench said, "previous enmity is a double edged weapon; on the one hand it provides the motive, whereas on the other hand, the possibility of false implication cannot be ruled out."

The bench also referred to the locus classicus case of 'Vedivelu Thevar vs State of Madras' (1957) which laid down that there are three types of witnesses, which are (i) wholly reliable, (ii) wholly unreliable, and (iii) neither wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable. 

"If the witness is wholly reliable, there is no difficulty inasmuch as relying on even the solitary testimony of such a witness conviction could be based. Again, there is no difficulty in the case of wholly unreliable witnesses inasmuch as his/her testimony is to be totally discarded. It is only in the case of the third category of witnesses which is partly reliable and partly unreliable that the Court faces the difficulty. The Court is required to separate the chaff from the grain to find out the true genesis of the incident," the bench said.

In the instant case, the bench said that both the prosecution witnesses Ramkali and Mulchand fell in the category of "wholly unreliable", therefore, the conviction could not sustain on the basis of their statements.

Case Title: Balaram Vs State of Madhya Pradesh