Case Brief: State of Punjab Vs. Harbans Singh and Anr.

Deciding Authority: Supreme Court of India
Date of Judgment: 10th April, 2003
Bench: Justice N. Santosh Hedge & Justice B.P.Singh
Facts of the Case: State of Punjab has preferred these appeals against the judgment of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh dated 13th July, 1994 made in Criminal Appeal No.206-DB of 1992 whereby the High Court allowed the appeal filed by the respondents herein and set aside the judgment and conviction imposed on the respondents by the Learned Sessions Judge.
The brief facts necessary for the disposal of these appeals are as follows. The respondent Jit Singh in these cases was son of Chanan Singh the deceased and the brother of Bhol Singh the other deceased who is also known as Gurbachan Singh. It is the prosecution case that in view of certain misunderstanding arising out of financial transaction respondent Jit Singh along with his brother-in-law Harbans Singh who is also respondent in these appeals had decided to eliminate Chanan Singh and Bhol Singh. With this view in mind, it is stated that on 26th of September, 1990 the respondents were in search of these two persons. Having come to know of the motives of the respondents herein in searching for them, the said Chanan Singh and Bhol Singh went to the house of Natha Singh who happened to be the Lambardar of the village and complained to him that the respondents herein were searching for them in the village with the intention of eliminating them, therefore, sought his help.
Judgment of the Case: The Supreme Court held that there is evidence to show that PW-4 was closely connected with the deceased and he was also an attestor to the pronote which, according to the prosecution, was the cause of fight which led to the death of two persons. Though the High Court has found the fact that PWs.4 and 11 have been prosecution witnesses in many cases is ground to reject their evidence, we do not think merely because some of the prosecution witnesses have appeared in large number of cases earlier for prosecution, ipso facto their evidence becomes liable to be rejected, but we think certainly such evidence will have to be considered with great caution. If in this background, we examine the evidence of PWs.4 and 11, we notice that there is evidence to show PWs.4 and 11 are partisan witnesses with an antecedent of appearing as frequent prosecution witnesses coupled with the fact that independent witnesses were not examined, this certainly throws considerable doubt on the veracity of their evidence. It is the prosecution case itself that Darshan Singh who was one of the witnesses to the incident who also helped PWs.4 and 11 to carry the injured to the hospital and remained with them almost right through has not been examined by the prosecution. The explanation given is that he has been won over by the accused. But then it is also to be noted that there were many neighbours also who came to the place of incident but none of them have been examined as witnesses leaving only PWs 4 and 11 as the sole eyewitnesses in this case. Further it is to be noticed that these two witnesses along with Darshan Singh carried both the injured persons in the vehicle and thereafter helped in carrying the injured persons to the Primary Health Centre but no blood stained clothes were recovered from the possession of these witnesses which also throws considerable doubt about the presence of these witnesses at the time of incident. PW-11 though says that there was a little blood stain on his cloth, he washed the same in the hospital which explanation, in our opinion, is highly artificial.