.

Decisions of two judge Benches of the Supreme Court

(a)

Angnoo and others vs. State of U P (V. Bhargava and I.D. Dua JJ.) (para 8)

That an eyewitness is the brother of the deceased (the relationship) would add value
to his evidence because he would be interested in getting the real culprit, rather than an
innocent person, punished.
(b)

State of U P vs. Samman Das (J.M. Shelat and H.R. Khanna JJ) (Para 20)

In a murder trial the relationship of the eyewitness to the deceased is not a sufficient
ground for discrediting of his testimony unless a motive is alleged and proved against him to
spare the real assailant and falsely involve another person in the place of the assailant.
(c)
State of Punjab vs. Jagir Singh Baljit Singh and Karan Singh (H.R. Khanna
and A. Alagireswami J.(para 12)
Some of the (eye) witnesses are close relatives of the deceased persons and it is most
difficult to believe that they would spare the real assailants and falsely mention the names of
innocent persons as having caused the injuries to the deceased persons.
Four of the eye witnesses, namely, Ajit Singh (PW 19), Harbans Singh (PW 21), Jarnail Singh
(PW 22) and Mohinder Singh (PW 27) received injuries during the course of the present
occurrence and there can be hardly any manner of doubt regarding their presence at the scene
of occurrence. It is not possible to accept the contention that these witnesses in spite of the
attack upon them and the three deceased persons failed to fix the identity of the assailants.
It is, no doubt, true that these witnesses belong to the party of the deceased but that fact, in
our opinion, would only make the court scrutinise the evidence of these witnesses more
closely. (Emphasis supplied)
d)
Labh Singh and others vs. State of Punjab (R.S. Sarkaria and A.C. Gupta
JJ.) dealing with the evidence of an eye witness PW13 who admitted that the deceased in the
case was his collateral, the Bench of observed:The mere fact that PW13 Tejasingh was a collateral of Nasib Singh (one of the deceased) in
some degree is no ground to hold that he is not a disinterested, independent witness.
(e)
Dalbir Kaur and others vs. State of Punjab (A.C. Gupta and S. Murtaza Faze
Ali JJ.) (para 13):Moreover a close relative who is a very natural witness cannot be regarded as an interested
witness. The term interested postulates that the person concerned must have some direct
interest in seeing that the accused person is somehow or the other convicted either because he
had some animus with the accused or for some other reason.
(f)
State of U P vs. Ballabh Das and others (S.M. Fazl Ali and A. Varadarajan
JJ. (para 5)

The question is whether the witnesses, despite being interested, have spoken
the truth and are creditworthy. Once it is found by the Court, on an analysis of the evidence
of an interested witness that there is no reason to disbelieve himthen the mere fact that the
witness is interested cannot persuade the court to reject the prosecution case.
(g)

Anil Rai vs. State of Bihar and others (K.T. Thomas and R.P. Sethi JJ).

In the case of inimical witnesses, courts are required to scrutinize their testimony
with anxious care to find out whether their testimony inspires confidence to be acceptable
notwithstanding the existence of enmity, where enmity is proved to be the motive for the
commission of the crime, accused cannot urge that despite proof of motive of the crime, the
witnesses proved to be inimical should not be relied on. Testimony of eyewitnesses,
which is otherwise convincing and consistent, cannot be discarded simply because on the
ground that the deceased was related to the eye-witnesses or previously there were some
disputes between the accused and the deceased on the witnesses. The existence of
animosity between the accused and the witnesses may, in some cases, give rise to the
possibility of the witnesses exaggerating the role of some of the accused or liying to rape in
more persons as accused persons Such a possibility is required to be ascertained on the
facts of the case

More important cases

1.

Masalti and Others vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, dealt with a case of a large number of
accused convicted under section 302 r/w section 149 IPC. In a faction ridden village,
Gayadin and four other members of his family were murdered allegedly by the members
of the rival faction which included the appellants. This rival faction was led by Laxmi
Prasad, one of the appellants. There were criminal cases between the parties for several
years. There was also panchayat election rivalry between the two factions. The
resulting incident was gruesome and long drawn out. Of the evidence of twelve
eyewitnesses examined, the High Court accepted the evidence of ten witnesses as
substantially true and correct. The High Court thought that most of the eyewitnesses
belonged to Gayadins faction and hence partisan but confirmed the conviction of those
accused against whom four or more witnesses gave a consistent account.
This was an extreme case of violently fighting village factions and the eyewitnesses
examined belonged to the faction of the victims. In such a situation it is not difficult to
presume the existence of enmity between the members of the two groups and hence the
witnesses could be regarded as partisan or interested. The four judge Bench (consisting of
P.B. Gajendragadkar, CJI, K.N. Wanchoo, K.C. Das Gupta and RaghubirDayal JJ.) held as
follows in paragraph 14:-

 When a criminal court has to appreciate evidence given by witnesses who are
partisan or interested, it has to be very careful in weighing such evidence. Whether or not
there are serious discrepancies in the evidence; whether or not evidence strikes the court as
genuine, whether or not the story disclosed by the evidence is probable, are all matters which
must be taken into account. But it would be unreasonable to contend that evidence
should be discarded only on the ground that it is partisan that it is evidence of partisan or
interested witnessesJudicial approach has to be cautious in dealing with such evidence.
Raju alias Balachandran and others vs. State of Tamil Nadu (AIR 2013 SC 983)
State of Rajasthan vs. Smt. Kalki and others. In this case, the widow of the deceased victim
was the sole eye witness to the occurrence which took place in her house while her mother- in
-law, who had been at some distance from the house, came running to the scene and saw the
accused leaving the place. The conviction entered by the trial court was set aside by the High
Court. The Supreme Court, in an appeal by the State, confirmed the conviction, setting aside
the High Court order. The acquittal by the High Court was on two grounds, namely, that
PW1 was a highly interested witness and there were serious discrepancies in her evidence:
The Supreme Court held that both the grounds were invalid