A credible solitary eyewitness, corroborated by forensic evidence, can sustain a murder conviction.

The appellant was convicted under Section 302 IPC for the murder of Baijnath Singh and sentenced to life imprisonment, a fine of ₹10,000, and, in default, three months’ rigorous imprisonment.

The prosecution alleged that the appellant assaulted the deceased with a tangi following a monetary dispute.

The deceased’s daughter, P.W.2, testified that she saw the appellant assaulting her father with a kulhari; the informant was not an eyewitness.

The post-mortem disclosed multiple incised wounds, and the investigating officer produced the seized kulhari and blood-stained shirt; the judgment recorded that forensic examination found human blood of blood group B on the seized materials.

The appellant appealed against his conviction and sentence, challenging, among other matters, the consistency of the evidence, the place of occurrence, and the timing of death.

Whether P.W.2’s testimony as the sole eyewitness, considered with the medical, seizure, and forensic evidence, proved the appellant’s guilt under Section 302 IPC beyond reasonable doubt.

Whether the alleged inconsistencies concerning the place of occurrence and timing of death warranted setting aside the conviction.

The Court applied Section 302 IPC, under which murder is punishable as prescribed by law.

It assessed the eyewitness account alongside corroborative evidence, including medical findings, the recovery of the alleged weapon and blood-stained clothing, and forensic results.

No judicial precedent was cited in the judgment.

The Court accepted P.W.2 as an eyewitness, noting that her account remained intact in cross-examination and that the defence had not discredited her status as a witness to the assault.

It considered her testimony corroborated by the post-mortem findings of multiple incised wounds consistent with assault by a kulhari, and by the recovery and forensic examination of the weapon and the appellant’s blood-stained shirt.

The Court also noted that another person identified by the investigating officer as an eyewitness had turned hostile, but found that this did not undermine P.W.2’s evidence.

It rejected the appellant’s grounds for appellate interference and found the prosecution case proved beyond reasonable doubt.

It dismissed the appeal, leaving the conviction and sentence undisturbed, and closed any pending interlocutory applications.