State of U.P. v. Ramesh Prasad Misra

The Supreme Court delivered an influential judgment on the appreciation of hostile witness testimony in murder trials. The Court held that evidence of a hostile witness cannot be rejected wholesale or treated as completely washed off the record. The trial court and appellate court can accept that part of the testimony which is found creditworthy, truthful, and consistent with the case of the prosecution or the defense. An acquittal granted by the High Court merely on the ground that key prosecution witnesses were declared hostile was set aside as legally perverse.

• Reaffirmation of Bhagwan Singh Doctrine: Reasserted that the declaration of a witness as hostile under Section 154 Evidence Act does not render the deposition non est.
• Evidentiary Value for Both Sides: Clarified that either the prosecution or the defense may rely on parts of the hostile witness's evidence that substantiate their plea.
• Primacy of Corroboration: Where the creditworthy portions of the hostile witness find corroboration in medical evidence and recoveries, conviction can be sustained.
• Reversal of Perverse Acquittals: The High Court erred in mechanically discarding eye-witness accounts solely because the witnesses turned hostile on peripheral details.
• Duty of Judicial Sifting: The judge must act as an active seeker of truth, separating the untruthful embellishments from the core substratum of the crime.

The respondents (Ramesh Prasad Misra and others) were tried for the murder of one Awadh Bihari on 28 August 1978. The deceased was ambushed in broad daylight, surrounded by the accused armed with firearms, and shot dead.

The prosecution examined two eyewitnesses (PW-1 and PW-2). During the trial, due to local pressure and intimidation, both witnesses resiled from portions of their earlier statements regarding the specific weapons carried by some accused, prompting the prosecution to cross-examine them under Section 154 of the Evidence Act.

However, both witnesses remained firm on the central core of the occurrence: the date, time, venue of the ambush, the presence of the accused persons, the firing of shots, and the immediate death of the deceased, which was fully corroborated by the autopsy surgeon and the recovery of empty cartridges.

The Sessions Court convicted the accused under Section 302/34 IPC. On appeal, the Allahabad High Court reversed the conviction and acquitted all accused, holding that since the eyewitnesses had turned hostile, their entire testimony was untrustworthy. The State of U.P. appealed to the Supreme Court.

It is equally well settled that the evidence of a hostile witness would not be totally rejected if spoken in favour of the prosecution or the accused, but it can be subjected to close scrutiny and that portion of the evidence which is consistent with the case of the prosecution or defence can be accepted. The High Court committed a manifest error of law in brushing aside the entire testimony of PW-1 and PW-2 merely because they were declared hostile by the prosecution under Section 154 of the Evidence Act. Merely because a witness is declared hostile, his entire deposition is not washed off the record. The court must scrutinize the evidence with care and caution to ascertain whether the core of the prosecution story stands proved. In the present case, despite being cross-examined by the prosecutor, both PW-1 and PW-2 consistently deposed that all the accused persons formed an unlawful assembly, armed themselves with weapons, surrounded the deceased, and that shots were fired resulting in his instantaneous death. This core testimony was fully corroborated by the prompt FIR, the medical evidence demonstrating gunshot wounds, and the recovery of bloodstained soil from the spot. The High Court was wholly unjustified in acquitting the respondents by mechanically discarding their evidence.

• Khujji v. State of M.P. (1991) 3 SCC 627: Foundational coordinate precedent followed on extracting truth from hostile depositions.
• C. Muniappan v. State of T.N. (2010) 9 SCC 567: Extensively applied Ramesh Prasad Misra to sustain convictions in political arson cases.
• Balu Sudam Khalde v. State of Maharashtra (2023) SCC OnLine SC 355: Reaffirmed that hostile witness evidence remains valuable substantive material.