Arms Act, 1959
Section 25—Recovery of arms and ammunition—Conviction—It is proved beyond reasonable doubt that the petitioner was in conscious possession of recovered arms and ammunition—Prosecution from quality and quantity of evidence led by it proved guilty of the petitioner beyond reasonable doubt—Conviction upheld.
[Paras 12.1 & 14]
Section 25—Recovery of arms and ammunition—Conviction and sentence—Prayer for lenient view—Submission that petitioner is an old aged lady and is suffering from various ailments and she has already lost her young son—Petitioner has already undergone seven months imprisonment—It is duty of court to award proper sentence having regard to the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was executed or committed etc.—Undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system to undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law—Appellate court and trial court has already taken lenient view after considering all facts and circumstances pertaining to the petitioner and has awarded only minimum sentence—Petition dismissed.
[Para 15]
Criminal Justice
Administration of—Role of witness—A witness who has to play important role in administration of criminal justice has relevant information about a crime—Witness by giving evidence performs a sacred duty of assisting the court in discovery of the truth and plays an important duty of assisting the court in deciding on the guilt or otherwise of the accused—It is the salutary duty of every witness to assist the State in giving evidence—Court after considering evidence decides whether the accused is guilty or innocent.
[Para 9]
Criminal Jurisprudence
Guilt of accused—Presumption of innocence—Burden of proof—In the adversarial system every person accused of an offence is presumed to be innocent and burden lies upon the prosecution to establish guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt—Doubt must be actual and substantial doubts as to the guilt of accused arising from the evidence or lack of it, as opposed to mere apprehensions and conjecture and surmises.
[Para 14]
Evidence Act, 1872
Section 3—Evidence of witnesses—Reliability—Every contradiction, discrepancy or improvement is not fatal for prosecution—Mere marginal variations in the statements of witnesses cannot be dubbed as improvements—It is only major contradiction, discrepancy or improvement on material facts shaking very genesis of prosecution case which matters for creating doubt on prosecution case—It is the quality and not quantity of evidence which is necessary for proving or disproving a fact—Test is whether the evidence has a ring of truth, is cogent, credible and trustworthy or otherwise.
[Para 10.1 & 11.2]
Section 154—Hostile witness—Reliability—Testimony of a hostile witness cannot be rejected merely on ground that said witness was declared as hostile and appears not to be supporting the case of prosecution—Part of testimony of a hostile witness can be read and relied on if it inspire confidence of the court and appears to be consistent and cogent.
[Para 11.3]