LAW FOR ALL

SINGLE WITNESS IS ENOUGH TO CONVICT THE ACCUSED IF FOUND RELIABLE = it has been held that if the testimony of a singular witness is found by the court to be entirely reliable, there is no legal impediment in recording the conviction of the accused on such proof. In the said pronouncement it has been further ruled that the law of evidence does not require any particular number of witnesses to be examined in proof of a given fact. However, faced with the testimony of a single witness, the court may classify the oral testimony into three categories, namely, (i) wholly reliable, (ii) wholly unreliable, and (iii) neither wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable. In the first two categories there may be no difficulty in accepting or discarding the testimony of the single witness. The difficulty arises in the third category of cases. The court has to be circumspect and has to look for corroboration in material particulars by reliable testimony, direct or circumstantial, before acting upon the testimony of a single witness.- On the analysis of evidence of PW-6 we find that his evidence is cogent and trustworthy and further gets corroboration from the medical evidence and also for the factum of recovery of gold and silver ornaments which has been clearly proven by PW-9. 20. In view of the aforesaid analysis, we do not perceive any error in the judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by the learned trial Judge that has been affirmed by the High Court and, accordingly, the appeal, being devoid of merit, stands dismissed.