New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said all
policemen are not bad and there is nothing in law which says
that a statement made by a cop cannot be treated as an
admissible evidence.
A bench of justices Markandeya Katju and CK Prasad said
statements of police personnel cannot be outrightly rejected
but should be weighed on the facts of the case.
"There is no principle of law that a statement made in a
court by a policeman has to be disbelieved. It may or may not
be believed. It is not that all policemen will tell lies.
There are good and bad people in all walks of life.
"There are good and bad police men as well. We cannot
assume that every statement of a policeman is necessarily
false," Justice Katju said writing the judgement.
The apex court made the remarks while dismissing the
appeal of one C Ronald accused of circulating Rs 100 fake
currency notes in Port Blair on November 26, 1997.
Though the trial court had acquitted Ronald of the
charges, the Calcutta High Court had, on an appeal by the
state, reversed the acquittal and convicted him for the
offence. Aggrieved, he had challenged the conviction.
Senior counsel Shanti Bhushan, appearing for Ronald, said
the accused was apparently framed by the policemen as he did
not pay them the bribe money. He argued since the trial court
had acquitted the accused, the high court ought not to have
interfered with the acquittal.
Rejecting the argument, the bench said "in this
connection, we would like to say that a judgement of a court
of law should not be read as a Euclid`s theorem nor as a
provision in a statute (vide Bharat Petroleum Corporation vs.
NR Vairamani, AIR 2004).
"A perusal of Section 386(a) CrPC shows that no
restrictions have been placed by the statute on the power of
the appellate court to reverse an order of acquittal and
convict the accused.
In the present case, there is nothing to show that the
policemen were making false statements in the court. They had
no enmity with the accused, the bench said, while sustaining
the conviction.
PTI
