Child Witness Who Saw Father Kill Mother Through Window Reliable: Calcutta High Court Upholds Life Sentence

The Calcutta High Court has upheld the life imprisonment of a man convicted for murdering his pregnant wife, holding that the testimony of their minor son, who witnessed the crime, was trustworthy and remained unimpeached in cross-examination.A division bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Rai Chattopadhyay dismissed the appeal filed by the accused and affirmed his conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.The Court observed that the 10-year-old child witness had no reason to falsely implicate his own father, and his testimony was corroborated by medical evidence and other circumstances on record.The prosecution case was that on January 21, 2014, the appellant Ram Chandra Pramanik brutally assaulted his wife Sampa Pramanik at their home in Howrah. The couple had been married for about ten years and the victim had allegedly faced repeated cruelty over demands for money from her parental home.The couple's minor son witnessed the incident through a window and immediately informed relatives and neighbours that his father had killed his mother. Police reached the spot and recovered a blood-stained sabol (shovel) and nylon rope, which were allegedly used in the assault. The victim was later found to be 18 weeks pregnant.The trial court convicted the appellant for murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment, leading to the present appeal.The High Court held that the evidence of the child witness was reliable. The bench noted that the trial judge had tested the witness's competence before recording his testimony and found him capable of giving evidence.The Court also relied on the principles laid down by the Supreme Court of India in State of Madhya Pradesh v. Balveer Singh regarding appreciation of child witness testimony. It observed that allegations of tutoring must satisfy a two-fold test—showing both the opportunity for tutoring and a reasonable likelihood that tutoring actually occurred.In the present case, the Court found no such circumstances. The child had immediately named his father as the assailant at the place of occurrence, leaving no time for anyone to influence him.Medical evidence further supported the prosecution case. The post-mortem revealed multiple injuries and fracture of the hyoid bone, indicating homicidal death by throttling, consistent with the child's account that the appellant first assaulted the victim with a sabol and later strangled her with a rope.Rejecting defence arguments regarding absence of neighbours as eyewitnesses and alleged discrepancies in the sketch map, the Court held that quality of evidence, not the number of witnesses, determines the credibility of the prosecution case.The Court also noted that the victim was 18 weeks pregnant, observing that the accused must be presumed to have known about the pregnancy.“The appellant has taken two lives. He has been reckless and inhuman,” the bench remarked, describing the accused as a “cold-blooded killer.”Finding no infirmity in the trial court's judgment, the High Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the life sentence imposed on the appellant.Case: Ram Chandra Pramanik v. State of West Bengal Case No: CRA 495 of 2017Click here to read order

Child Witness Who Saw Father Kill Mother Through Window Reliable: Calcutta High Court Upholds Life Sentence

Srinjoy Das

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