Crl.A./207/2020 on 2 May, 2024
There is no rule of law that her testimony cannot be acted without
corroboration in material particulars. Her testimony has to be
appreciated on the principle of probabilities just as the testimony
of any other witness; a high degree of probability having been shown
to exist in view of the subject matter being a criminal charge.
However, if the Court of facts may find it difficult to accept the
version of the prosecutrix on its face value, it may search for
evidence, direct or circumstantial, which would lend assurance to her
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testimony. Assurance, short of corroboration as understood in the
context of an accomplice would do. Reference may be had to a long
chain of decisions some of which are Rameshwar v. State of Rajasthan,
AIR 1952 SC 54; Sidheswar Ganguly v. State of West Bengal, AIR 1958
SC 143; Madhoram v. State of Uttar Pradesh, [1973] 1 SCC 533; State
of Maharashtra v. Chandraprakash Kewalchand Jain, [1990] 1 SCC 550;
Madam Gopal Kakkad vs. Naval Dubey, [1992] 3 SCC 204; State of
Rajasthan vs. Narayan, [1992] [3] SCC 615; Karnel Singh vs. State of
Madhya Pradesh, [1995] 5 SCC 518; Bodhisattwa Gautam vs. Subhra
Chakraborty, [1996] 1 SCC 490; and State of Punjab vs. Gurmit Singh
[1996] 2 SCC 384. We may quote from the last of the abovesaid
decisions where the rule for appreciating the evidence of the
prosecutrix in such cases has been succinctly summed up in the
following words :-