A conviction cannot rest on a partially reliable solitary eyewitness without independent corroboration.

The appellant was convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (“IPC”) for allegedly causing the death of his brother, Hanumant Singh, during a dispute concerning partition and rental income from ancestral property.

The prosecution alleged that, on 27.05.2000, the appellant, along with his father and wife, assaulted the deceased and that the appellant struck him with a wooden bat/thapki.

The deceased subsequently died from his injuries.

The appellant was acquitted of the charges under Sections 323, 201 and 34 IPC, while the co-accused were acquitted of all charges.

The prosecution case primarily rested on the testimony of PW-6, the deceased’s wife, who claimed to be an eyewitness.

The Trial Court found that her account of the deceased being dragged and assaulted inside the house was exaggerated, but nevertheless relied on the remaining testimony, the alleged property dispute, medical evidence and recovery of the thapki to convict the appellant under Section 302 IPC.

In appeal, the appellant challenged the reliability of PW-6, the unexplained discrepancy regarding the place of occurrence, the failure to examine independent witnesses, the evidentiary value of the thapki and the absence of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

The Court applied Section 302 IPC, which penalises murder, and the general criminal-law requirement that the prosecution must establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Under Section 134 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, conviction may legally rest on the testimony of a single witness; however, under Vadivelu Thevar v. State of Madras, 1957 SCC OnLine SC 13, such evidence must be classified as wholly reliable, wholly unreliable, or neither wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable, with corroboration required in the third category.

Joseph v. State of Kerala, (2003) 1 SCC 465, further requires solitary eyewitness testimony to be cogent, reliable, consistent with probabilities and capable of inspiring implicit confidence.

The Court also applied the principle that motive is a double-edged circumstance, capable both of suggesting guilt and of furnishing a reason for false implication, as recognised in Aslam @ Imran v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 670.

It further relied on Raja Nayakar v. State of Chhattisgarh, (2024) 3 SCC 481, and State of Rajasthan v. Hanuman, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1387, for the rule that mere recovery of a blood-stained weapon, even with a blood-group match, is insufficient by itself to prove murder.

The Court held that PW-6 was not a wholly reliable witness.

Her account that the deceased was dragged and assaulted inside the house was inconsistent with the absence of dragging injuries on the deceased, the absence of injuries on PW-6, the photographs and crime-team report, and the failure of the Investigating Officer to inspect or photograph the alleged courtyard where the fatal assault supposedly occurred.

The two site plans materially differed, while the physical evidence and investigation were concentrated outside the house near a blood-stained cot, creating uncertainty regarding the actual place of occurrence.

Since the Trial Court itself had rejected material portions of PW-6’s testimony, her evidence fell within the category of testimony requiring corroboration.

No independent eyewitness from the alleged crowd or neighbouring shops was examined, and the prosecution evidence did not otherwise provide reliable corroboration.

The thapki could not cure these deficiencies: although the FSL report indicated human blood of the deceased’s blood group, the seizure memo did not record bloodstains on the weapon, and mere recovery of such an object did not establish that the appellant used it to commit the murder.

The appellant’s recovered clothes also did not contain human blood and therefore did not incriminate him.

In the absence of credible ocular evidence or a complete circumstantial chain, the prosecution had proved, at most, suspicion and not guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

It held that the testimony of PW-6 was insufficiently reliable and materially uncorroborated, that the prosecution failed to establish the place and circumstances of the fatal assault, and that the recovery of the thapki and clothes did not establish the appellant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The conviction dated 05.04.2003 and order on sentence dated 17.04.2003 were set aside, and the appellant was acquitted of all charges.

The appeal was allowed.

His bail bond and sureties were directed to remain valid for six weeks under Section 481 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, corresponding to Section 437A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.