Evidence of Hostile Witness Remains Admissible; Duty of Court to Separate Grain from Chaff: Supreme Court

“Hostile Testimony Can Still Illuminate the Truth”, - Supreme Court of India clarified a crucial principle regarding the evidentiary value of hostile witnesses. The Bench comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra upheld the convictions in a shocking case of honour killing while firmly rejecting the defence argument that reliance on hostile witnesses renders a prosecution case unreliable.
The Court declared: “Despite hostility, the Court must extract the truth to advance the cause of justice.”

This judgment once again emphasized that the testimony of a hostile witness is not to be discarded wholesale, but must be carefully scrutinized and accepted where found credible and corroborated.

The case arose from the brutal killing of an inter-caste couple, Murugesan and Kannagi, by the girl’s family and community members. Several key prosecution witnesses, including villagers and relatives of the victims, turned partly hostile during the prolonged trial, which spanned over eighteen years.
Despite the contradictions, the Trial Court and High Court had relied upon the credible parts of their depositions to convict the accused. Before the Supreme Court, the appellants argued that the prosecution case stood vitiated because of reliance on hostile witnesses.

Rejecting the defence’s arguments, the Court reaffirmed established principles of evidence law: “The testimony of a hostile witness cannot be treated as washed off the record altogether. It remains admissible, and it is the duty of the Court to discern and act upon the credible parts.”

Referring extensively to Sat Paul v. Delhi Administration, Neeraj Dutta v. State (NCT of Delhi), and the amendments made by the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2005, the Court reiterated that the law now statutorily recognizes, under Section 154(2) of the Evidence Act, that parts of a hostile witness's evidence can be relied upon.

Quoting the judgment, the Court stated: “There is no rule that the evidence of a hostile witness must be discarded in toto. It is for the Court to see whether the hostile witness’s testimony is corroborated and to what extent it can be believed.”

The Court also noted that the Indian Evidence Act intentionally does not use the term "hostile witness," unlike English law, and instead places wide discretion on judges to allow cross-examination of a party’s own witness without needing a formal declaration of hostility.

The Court remarked: “A Trial Court is not a silent umpire; it is an active participant in the voyage to discover the truth. Hostile testimony, if credible in parts, must be used to advance justice, not suppressed in technical rigidity.”

The Supreme Court paid close attention to the testimonies of PW-1 (Samikannu), PW-2 (Velmurugan), PW-3 (Palanivel), PW-15 (Tamilarasi), and PW-49 (Chinnapillai).

While several of these witnesses deviated from earlier police statements in minor aspects or refrained from implicating certain accused (particularly those belonging to the Dalit community who were wrongly made accused initially), their core accounts regarding the role of the principal accused remained firm and consistent.

The Court found that: “Despite hostility in some respects, these witnesses presented credible, coherent accounts of the events leading to the murders.”
Especially important was PW-49, whose eyewitness testimony regarding the forced administration of poison to Murugesan was pivotal. The Court observed that though she was summoned midway through trial under Section 311 CrPC, her testimony was unimpeachable regarding the main accused and could not be disregarded merely because she did not implicate other co-accused.

The Court emphasized: “The Court must separate the grain from the chaff. It is neither just nor lawful to throw out the entire testimony of a witness merely because they turned hostile in part.”

Through this landmark reaffirmation, the Supreme Court has clarified once again that the ultimate duty of a criminal court is to search for truth amidst contradictions and human frailty. Hostile witnesses do not necessarily cripple a prosecution; instead, their credible testimony, when corroborated, can and must form the basis of conviction.

The Court’s concluding remark encapsulates its approach: “Truth cannot be abandoned at the altar of hostility. Courts must tread carefully, but firmly, to find justice even amidst broken testimonies.”
By doing so, the Supreme Court ensured that the heinous crime of caste-based honour killing did not go unpunished due to technicalities, and the majesty of justice was upheld.
 

Date of Decision: 28 April 2025