Test of Witness's credibility is cross-examination: High Court

 

The test to ascertain a witness’s credibility is cross-examination, the Punjab and Haryana high court has observed while relying on the statements of a mother to dismiss an appeal by her husband who “sacrificed” their six-year-old to appease “Maa Kali” under the influence of black magic.

The mother was declared hostile but accepted the involvement of the accused in the crime during cross-examination. In the HC, the father, Gurgaon’s Karambir, had challenged his July 2012 conviction and life term awarded by a lower court. 

“The witness (mother) was declared hostile by the public prosecutor because she did not come out with complete details as per the case of the prosecution, and when she was cross-examined by the public prosecutor and rightly so, she further supported the prosecution case. The test to ascertain the credibility of the witness is through cross-examination,” Justices Sureshwar Thakur and Kuldeep Tiwari said in their order last week.

“We have considered her (mother’s) entire statement and found that since she passed this test successfully, she is a credible witness... There is no motive attributed by the defence to this witness for false implication, more so, when she is the wife and dependent upon the appellant,” the bench observed.

The HC further stressed that a court is concerned with the quality, not quantity, of the evidence to prove or disprove a fact.

 

According to the prosecution, Karambir often spoke about a sacrifice for “Maa Kali”. On the intervening night of September 28/29, 2011, when a ‘jagran (religious congregation)’ was on in his neighbourhood, Nawal strangled his son, all the while uttering the words “Jai Maa Kali”. Karambir’s wife had deposed in court saying she and her mother-in-law tried to stop him but he threatened and brushed them off.

In the HC, Karambir contended that his wife and mother had been declared hostile witnesses and, therefore, the trial court order convicting him was perverse and should be set aside. But the HC examined the cross-examination statements, held them to be credible witnesses and rejected Karambir’s appeal.

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(With input from news agency language)

 

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