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Showing contexts for: ocular testimony in Kaptan Singh vs State Of U.P. on 7 February, 2020Matching Fragments
Learned counsel has further submitted that the manner in which the incident has been described in the FIR is contrary to the ocular testimony, medical evidence and the site plan. It has been disclosed in the FIR that the P.W-1 Bahaar Singh and P.W-2 Brijendra Singh had witnessed the incident. It was narrated that all the accused persons armed with different firearm weapons from north side came to the house of the deceased Ram Sahay, out of whom three accused persons, Atar Singh (since deceased), Mansha Ram and Kaptan Singh, the present appellant started firing. The fire hit to the deceased when he was sitting at the platform and he made an effort to enter into the baithak wherein three other accused persons, namely, Sughar Singh, Phulwari and Nawab Singh had entered and made fire therein. The postmortem report prepared by the Doctor gives narration of four gun shots wound found on the person of the deceased and all the injuries had wadding and tikli of the cartridges lodged in the body and according to Medico Legal and Ballistic finding, it is clear indicative of the fact that the firearm weapon shots were made as a contact shot which belies the ocular version stated by the two witnesses that the firearm wound was sustained by the deceased while he was sitting on his chabootra from a distance of 3-4 ft. As such it creates serious shadow of doubt on the veracity and truthfulness of the ocular testimony of the prosecution witnesses. The dimension of injury nos.1, 2 & 3 has been recorded by the Doctor who had conducted the autopsy of the deceased as 3cm x 2.5cm which further goes to show that these three wounds being contact shots were made by single fire weapon. Further more it is alleged that Ram Sahay was done to death and was dragged about a distance of 50-60 mtr. in an open land in an attempt to hide his dead body which was set to fire under the leaf and wood. When the person has already been killed by the accused persons who were armed with deadly weapon there was no reason to drag him in open place to hide in the presence of the son and wife of the deceased and also other relatives and the P.W-1 had deposed that he was standing 20-25 meter away from the place of incident. It is highly improbable that the accused persons had not caused any harm to him or any other witnesses. During the entire episode no person had made any effort to utter any word or try to stop the accused persons from making any indiscriminate firing and if they were apprehending of any harm to themselves they did not even fled away from the place of incident. This unusual or unreasonable conduct especially on the part of the son of the deceased who is said to be present during entire episode does not pass the test of commonsense and reasonableness or natural human conduct and hence creates doubt about the presence of the witnesses and the veracity of their testimony regarding incident.
It is further submitted that in view of the contradiction between oral evidence, medical evidence and delay in recording the statement by the investigating officer, non-availability of proper site plan and in the absence of any ballistic expert with regard to the fire, the ocular testimony makes the entire testimony improbable. This is a case where there are material exaggerations and contradictions, which raises reasonable doubt that the appellants were not involved in the commission of offence.
The fact remains that as the body was burnt by the accused persons it was not possible to the Doctor to find blackening, tattooing and scorching. The site plan indicates that after killing the deceased at platform his dead body was dragged from the baithak by the accused persons and was taken to an open land 50 yards away. The trail of blood was found by the investigating officer which has been specifically mentioned in the site plan in red ink, which further corroborates the testimony of the P.W-1 Bahaar Singh and P.W-2 Brijendra Singh showing that the victim Ram Sahay was killed by firing and his dead body was mercilessly dragged by them and was set ablaze. Hence the ocular testimony has greater evidentiary value which cannot be disbelieved. The case cited by the learned counsel Mahavir Singh (Supra) is based upon different facts and circumstances of the case.
The prosecution is not obliged to prove its case by leading separate evidence with respect to the common object of all the accused persons. Those factors found by the learned trial court on the available evidence on record, hence we have no reason to ignore the same with regard to the ocular testimony vis-a-vis conflict between the ocular testimony and the medical evidence. It is by now well settled that the medical evidence cannot override the evidence of ocular testimony of the witnesses. If there is a conflict between the ocular testimony and medical evidence naturally the ocular testimony prevails.