Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, June 9: High Court upheld the acquittal of 7 persons in murder case by recording that there is infirmity in prosecution statements that render it weak, fragile, incoherent and dismissed the prosecution appeal.
The division bench of Justice V C Koul and Justice Mohan Lal dismissed the appeal of prosecution challenging the judgment of acquittal passed by Additional Sessions Judge Srinagar in the year 2016. It was on 06.06.2011, Police Station Kothibagh received information from a reliable source that at Residency Road near Pratap Park, one Mohammad Afzal Khan of Naharpur Sopore, had been fired upon through illegal weapon and had sustained critical injury.
The injured was referred to SMHS Hospital by police persons, where he succumbed to injuries and corpse was taken into custody by the police for post-mortem. In this regard a case bearing FIR no.49/2011 under Sections 307 RPC and 7/27 Arms Act was registered in Police Station Kothibagh and investigation has culminated into filing of charge sheet against the 7 accused persons before the court of law.
The trial court after a full-fledged trial of the case acquitted all the accused persons. The DB while upholding the acquittal of accused persons said the court can and may act on the testimony of a single witness provided he is wholly reliable and there is no legal impediment in acquitting a person on the sole testimony of a single witness, but if there are doubts about the testimony, the court will insist on corroboration.
Court said the test is whether the evidence has a ring of truth, is cogent, credible and trustworthy or otherwise and the legal system has laid emphasis on value, weight and quality of evidence, rather than on quantity, multiplicity or plurality of witnesses.
“Thus it is open to a competent court to fully and completely rely on a solitary witness and record acquittal and conversely it may acquit the accused in spite of testimony of several witnesses if it is not satisfied about the quality of evidence”, Court said.
Court on examination of the statements of witnesses said these are not sufficient to convict the accused as there is infirmity in their statements that render them weak, fragile, incoherent or improbable. “Testing the prosecution case on the touchstone of the evidence of the aforesaid witnesses, the impugned judgment is based on the law, reason and the logic”, reads the judgment.
“Prosecution has failed in discharging its burden to prove that the accused have committed the crime imputed to them. There is no merit in this appeal. It entails dismissal as a consequence of which the same is dismissed and the judgment of acquittal recorded by the trial court is maintained and upheld”, Court concluded.
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