Girja Prasad (Dead) By Lrs vs State Of Madhya Pradesh on 27 August, 2007
28. It has also been argued that no independent public wit-
nesses were made to join the raid, despite the spot being a regular
market place which generally has public presence even up till
late hours in the day. The witnesses examined have stated that de-
spite some public persons present near the spot being asked to
join the investigation, they citing their reasons refused to partici-
pate. It is settled law as held in as held in Girja Prasad v State
of MP [(2007) 7 SCC 625] that law does not mandate that testi-
monies of police witnesses should not be accepted, unless cor-
roborated in material particulars by other independent evidence,
as the presumption that every person acts honestly applies
equally to a police official and that 'no infirmity attaches to the
testimony of police officials merely because they belong to the
police force'. It is pertinent to keep in view that the police offi-
cials have no axe to grind and cannot be presumptively labelled
as 'interested witnesses', unless there is material gathered or set
forth to show otherwise.