New Delhi: In a striking indictment of the criminal justice system,the S C has expressed anguish over recent trend of eyewitnesses turning hostile,forgetting the dead and helping criminals and murderers go scot-free. So disturbed was a Bench comprising Justices Mukundakam Sharma and H L Dattu that it upheld conviction of two persons in a murder case on the sole evidence of victims wife even though most other eye-witnesses to the murder turned hostile. Witnesses not speaking up during trial did not come as a surprise for the apex court. Justice Dattu, writing the judgment for the Bench said, unfortunately, the trend in this country appears to be, as time passes, dead are forgotten and the living with a criminal record are worshipped and adored and no witness would like to speak against them.
This judgment from the apex court came in a case where one Fanilal was murdered by Sambhu Das and his associates in a town in Assam in June 1997. When the accused persons were assaulting the victim, a witness informed his wife, who rushed to the spot. With the help of police, she took her husband to hospital but he died. In this case, both the witnesses the person who informed the wife and the rickshaw puller who took the victim to hospital turned hostile. Yet, the trial court convicted the accused for murder on evidence from the wifes testimony. It had sentenced them to life imprisonment.
The HC upheld the decision and the SC refused to interfere with the rulings though a case was made out before it that the eye-witnesses had turned hostile and there were contradictions in the wife's statements during her cross-examination.
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(source-toi)
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