New Delhi, Oct 20: Plugging a major loophole in the trial proceedings, the Supreme Court has ruled that mere variations in statements of witnesses during the course of the trial without altering the facts of the case should not be a ground for disbelieving them. A bench comprising Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat gave the ruling while dismissing a petition challenging a Delhi court's verdict convicting one Sushil Kumar for murdering a person on a trivial ground that he had severed his association with a eunuch.
Justice Pasayat, writing for the bench, said "merely because of the fact that there were some minor omissions, which are but natural, considering the fact that the examination in court took place years after the occurrence, the evidence does not become suspect."
The trial court had relied on the eye-witness account to convict Kumar, who had alleged that the witness was not trustworthy as he had given a statement before police which was materially different from the one given before the court.
Rejecting the argument, Justice Pasayat said that "minor details which are not indicated in the First Information Report are later on elaborated in court. This does not justify a criticism that the case originally presented has been abandoned to be substituted by another one”.
The bench said no witness could reproduce his statement in a precise mathematical manner and added "it is only when exaggerations fundamentally change the nature of the case, the court has to consider whether the witness was telling the truth or not." Bureau Report