New Delhi: Underlining that even one witness is enough to prove or disprove a case, a Madhya Pradesh sessions court has acquitted 11 men who were accused of communal violence during the 2022 Ram Navami procession in Khargone.
The prosecution presented 13 witnesses of whom eight could not identify any of the accused, Fourth Additional Session Judge Mukesh Nath said, adding that the statements of the remaining witnesses also had contradictions.
It is not the number of witnesses, but the quality of their evidence that is important, the judge noted.
Some of the lapses pointed out in the case of prosecution was the absence of the name of a woman—one of the witnesses—in the written complaint and the First Information Report (FIR), although both were filed two days after the violence.
No explanation was given for the delay in lodging the FIR, the court added.
Significantly, the court noted that the woman’s testimony under Section 161 of the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was recorded 51 days later, without providing any explanation for the delay, even as she was the most important witness.
The court asked the prosecution how it named the 11 persons as accused, as the FIR initially mentioned only six. Five persons were added later, without giving any reason, it noted.
Damage was caused to residential areas and a host of criminal offences were allegedly committed such as unlawful assembly, rioting, damaging property, criminal trespass, house trespass, actions endangering life and safety, and mischief by fire or explosive substances, the prosecution had submitted.
Additional charges were filed under Sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substances Act, relating to the alleged use or possession of explosive substances. After the Ram Navami violence, the district administration had proceeded to demolish 16 homes, and 29 shops across multiple locations.
No remnants of inflammable petroleum hydrocarbons could be detected in the bottles and other material, which were seized from the site of the incident, the court said, after going through a Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report.
Earlier, the prosecution had told the court that a group of more than five Muslim men attacked the homes of Hindus with stones and petrol bombs.
The laboratory findings could not establish that petrol bombs or explosive substances were used by the accused, it mentioned in a 37-page order.
Emphasising that the prosecution’s case rested on the testimony of the female witness, the court said that incidentally, the same witness was not named in the FIR or original written complaint.
Moreover, the testimony was dismissed by the court due to contradictions. For instance, the woman said she recognised all of the accused men by their faces, while her family members told the court that the accused had covered their faces.
Neither a Test Identification Parade (TIP) was carried out nor reasoning was given for the basis on which the police picked the accused from a mob of 50 people, the court said.
As no conclusive evidence could be gathered from the testimonies of the witnesses, the court said that involvement of the 11 accused could not be proved by the prosecution.
Is one witness enough?
Section 134 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 states that no specific number of witnesses is needed to prove any fact in a court. The law judges a case by the quality of the evidence, not the number of witnesses.
The legislature determined presumably after due consideration of the pros and cons, that it shall not be necessary for proof or disproof of a fact, to call any particular number of witnesses, the court noted, adding that the female witness could be useful if the testimony was credible.
The court pointed out that although in England, both before and after the passing of the 1872 Act, there were a number of statutes forbidding convictions on the testimony of a single witness, the Indian legislature has not insisted on any such rule.
“Evidence has to be weighed and not counted,” it said, pointing out that administration of justice may be hampered if a particular number of witnesses were to be insisted upon.
Eventually, the court has to depend upon the circumstances of each case and the quality of the evidence of the single witness whose testimony has to be either accepted or rejected, the judge noted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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