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54. In Abdul Sayeed vs State of MP, 2010 (10) SCC 259 in which the above passage from Solanki (supra) has been quoted affirmingly to lay down:

"Thus, the position of law in cases where there is contradiction between medical evidence and ocular evidence can be crystallised to the effect that though the ocular testimony of a witness has greater evidentiary value vis-a-vis medical evidence, when medical evidence makes the ocular testimony improbable, that becomes a relevant factor in the process of evaluation of evidence. However, where medical evidence goes so far that it completely rules out all possibility of the ocular evidence being true, the ocular evidence may be disbelieved."

55. In Krishnan Vs. State, AIR 2003 SC 2978, the supreme court considered the question how to reconcile where medical opinion suggesting alternative possibilities than ocular testimony? The court has observed:

" The ocular evidence being cogent, credible and trustworthy, minor variance, if any, with the medical evidence are not of any consequence. It would be erroneous to accord undue primacy to the hypothetical answers of medical witnesses to exclude the eye-witnesses' account which had to be tested independently. It is trite that where the eye witnesses' account is found credible and trustworthy, medical opinion pointing two alternative possibilities is not accepted as conclusive. Eye-witnesses account would require a careful independent assessment and evaluation for their credibility which should not be adversely prejudged making any other evidence, including medical evidence, as the sole touchstone for the test of such credibility."

59. In view of above, we are of the view that semi digested food found during post-mortem of the deceased person cannot be a decisive factor in the circumstances of the case to create doubt with regards to timing of death. The deceased was a railway employee and the daily routine, eating and sleeping habit of such person is governed by what duty he was performing at the time of death. It may also be noticed that many persons usually take tea or some liquid before going to ease out. It may also be noticed that because of uncertainty in the daily routine and the eating habit, constipation etc, it is always possible that rectum may not be clear in one time. Only on the basis that the doctor found rectum half filled at the time of post-mortem, it is not sufficient to show that the incident took place at a time much before what has been alleged by the prosecution. Moreover, the settled principle is that if there is some difference of such nature between the ocular testimony and medical evidence, ocular testimony being direct evidence will be preferred over the medical evidence. Both the eye-witnesses have clearly proved the time of death as they have stated that when the accused persons ran away after committing the offence, they went closer to their father and found that he was dead. No reason has been advanced from the side of appellants to create doubt on the ocular version on this point.

65. In Badam Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh; AIR 2004 SC 26, it has been remarked by the Court that, even though existence of motive loses significance when there is reliable ocular testimony, in a case where the ocular testimony appears to be suspect, the existence or absence of motive acquires some significance regarding the probability of the prosecution case. In any case, we find with reference to judgements in Sheo Shankar Singh v State of Jharkhand; 2011(74) ACC 159 (SC), Ravinder Kumar v State of Punjab; 2001 (2) JIC (SC), State of H.P. v Jeet Singh; (1999) 4 SCC 370; Pannayar v State of Tamil Nadu by Inspector of Police; AIR 2010 SC 85 that the legal position regarding proof of motive as an essential requirement for bringing home the guilt of the accused is fairly well settled by a long line of decisions of the Court. These decisions have made a clear distinction between cases where prosecution relies upon circumstantial evidence on the one hand and those where it relies upon the testimony of eye-witnesses on the other. In the former category of cases proof of motive is given the importance it deserves, for proof of a motive itself constitutes a link in the chain of circumstances upon which the prosecution may rely. Proof of motive, however, goes into the background in cases where the prosecution relies upon an eye-witness account of the occurrence.