In a significant ruling on criminal evidence, the Supreme Court has clarified that testimony from hostile witnesses is not a one-way weapon for the prosecution alone. Such evidence, the Court said, can equally be relied upon to dismantle the prosecution’s story and justify an acquittal.
A Bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice N V Anjaria overturned the conviction of a man who had earlier been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and offences under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The judges observed that if hostile testimony can legally support a conviction when corroborated by other material, the same principle must logically apply in reverse. According to the Court, portions of such testimony that appear credible and align with the broader evidence on record may also be used to expose weaknesses in the prosecution’s version and support acquittal.
The case arose from the death of Shiva Shankar in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district in 2013. Prosecutors alleged that the accused attacked the deceased with a stone following tensions linked to the deceased eloping with the accused’s younger sister months earlier. The victim later died while being taken to a Hyderabad hospital.
A trial court convicted the accused under Sections 302 and 323 of the IPC along with provisions of the SC/ST Act. The Telangana High Court later affirmed that conviction, prompting an appeal before the apex court.
The Supreme Court, however, found deep fractures in the prosecution narrative.
Several prosecution witnesses — including key eyewitnesses — turned hostile. More importantly, their statements contradicted the prosecution on a central issue: where exactly the assault had taken place. The Bench noted that once the testimonies of the hostile witnesses were read together, the prosecution’s version began to collapse under its own inconsistencies.
The Court remarked that the prosecution failed to firmly establish even the occurrence of the incident in the manner alleged. It pointed out that the supposed crime scene was a busy public road near quarry operations, with constant movement of trucks and other vehicles. Yet no neutral bystander or local resident was examined to support the prosecution’s account.
This absence of independent corroboration, coupled with conflicting witness testimony, created serious doubt about the prosecution story itself, the Court held.
Calling the evidence “weak, contradictory and crumbling,” the Bench concluded that both the trial court and the High Court had committed a serious error in sustaining the conviction.
The appeal was accordingly allowed, and the conviction was set aside in full.
The case was titled Talari Naresh v. State of Telangana.
