TMI Blog1949 (3) TMI 31X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... amount almost to a rule of law that it is unsafe to act on the evidence of an accomplice unless it is corroborated in material respects so as to implicate the accused; and further, that the evidence of one accomplice cannot be used to corroborate the evidence of another accomplice. The law in India, therefore, is substantially the same on the subject as the law in England, though the rule of prudence may be said to be based on the interpretation placed by the courts on the phrase corroborated in material particulars in illustration (B) to Section 114. 2. The approver in the present case was a man aged about twenty. He was arrested on October 12, 1946, the day after the offence, and on October 14, was sent by the police to a magistrate, who was called as a witness at the trial, and who, on October 15, recorded a statement of the approver under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In this statement the approver described the murder, and alleged in effect that he and Trinath had been engaged by the appellant to assist in the murder, which they did; that in the struggle the cloth of the murdered man became untied and the appellant threw it over a bush. On February 17, 1 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nce of an accomplice. An accomplice cannot corroborate himself; tainted evidence does not lose its taint by repetition. But in considering whether the evidence of the approver given before the committing magistrate was to be preferred to that which he gave in the Sessions Court, the court was entitled to have regard to the fact that very soon after the occurrence he had made a statement in the same sense as the evidence which he gave before the committing magistrate. 3. Although the learned judges of the High Court accepted the evidence of the approver given before the committing magistrate, they appreciated that it would be unsafe to act on such evidence unless it were corroborated in the manner required by the rule of prudence. Apart from the suspicion which always attaches to the evidence of an accomplice it would plainly be unsafe, as the judges of the High Court recognized, to rely implicitly on the evidence of a man who had deposed on oath to two different stories. The learned judges stated the principle on which they proposed to act in these terms: It is of the utmost importance, however, that such evidence [i.e., the evidence of an approver admissible under Section 288 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... trument which would be unlikely to be found in the house of an agriculturist it would no doubt be a striking coincidence that a khantibadi was handed over by Trinath at the appellant's house and one was subsequently found there. But the evidence is that a khantibadi is an instrument commonly possessed by agriculturists, and there was nothing strange in finding one at the house of the appellant. The High Court attached some importance to the unwillingness of the mother of the appellant to produce the khantibadi, but such unwillingness is in accord with the uncooperative attitude which agriculturists, and particularly female members of the family, usually display towards police investigations. In their Lordships' view neither the finding of the piece of cloth nor the production of the khantibadi tends to implicate the accused in the crime, nor affords such corroboration of the evidence of the approver as the rule of prudence requires. 4. Sir Valentine Holmes did not rely strongly on these pieces of alleged corroboration. He concentrated his argument mainly on the contention that the High Court was wrong in not accepting the confession of Trinath as sufficient corroboration ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the court should have regard in applying illustration B. to Section 114 of the Evidence Act. The example is in these terms: A crime is committed by several persons. A., B. and C, three of the criminals, are captured on the spot and kept apart from each other. Each gives an account of the crime implicating D., and the accounts corroborate each other in such a manner as to render previous concert highly improbable. 5. Sir Valentine contends that Trinath's confession was made independently of that of the approver, that neither he nor the approver had any reason for falsely implicating the appellant, and that the confession does afford sufficient corroboration to justify acceptance of the evidence of the approver, even if it does not amount to corroboration in material particulars within illustration (B) of Section 114. The evidence on record, however, does not support this argument. The confession of Trinath is a very short one and gives only the bare outline of the story. It discloses nothing which the police had not been able to ascertain from the approver, and affords no intrinsic evidence of its truth. It was, as already noted, retracted in the Sessions Court. Retraction ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s untrue. He may implicate ten people in an offence, and the story may be true in all its details as to eight of them, but untrue as to the other two, whose names have been introduced because they are enemies of the approver. This tendency to include the innocent with the guilty is peculiarly prevalent in India, as judges have noted on innumerable occasions, and it is very difficult for the court to guard against the danger. An Indian villager is seldom in a position to produce cogent evidence of alibi. If he is charged with having taken part in a crime on a particular night when he was in fact asleep in his hut, or guarding his crops, he can only rely, as a rule, on the evidence of his wife, members of his family, or friends to support his story, and their evidence is interested and not likely to carry weight. The only real safeguard against the risk of condemning the innocent with the guilty lies in insisting on independent evidence which in some measure implicates each accused. This aspect of the matter was well expressed by Sir George Rankin in Ambica's case (1930) 35 C.W.N. 1274. 6. In the present case their Lordships are in complete agreement with the judges of the Hig ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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