The Supreme Court recently held that evidence in cases involving sexual offences committed within the privacy of a home must be assessed with sensitivity and realism, observing that courts cannot insist on the same standard of corroboration that may be available in cases involving crimes committed in public.

A bench of Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Vijay Bishnoi observed that insisting such kind of corroboration would impose an impossible standard to meet and would amount to granting immunity to those who prey on children in the secrecy of a home.

“Offences of this nature are seldom committed in the presence of witnesses. The sexual abuse of a child within the household, in particular, is perpetrated in secrecy and in stealth, and the persons ordinarily present are the perpetrator, the child and, if at all, a member of the household who is powerless to prevent it. To insist, in such cases, upon the kind of corroboration that might be available in a crime committed in the open would be to insist upon a standard that the very nature of the offence renders impossible of attainment, and would be to grant to those who prey upon children within the home an immunity founded upon the secrecy in which they cloak their crime” the Court observed.

The Court made the observation while upholding the conviction of a man for the rape and murder of his six-year-old stepdaughter, while commuting his death sentence to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life without remission.

Relying on its decision in State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh (1996) 2 SCC 384 the Court reiterated that evidence in sexual-offence cases must be appreciated with sensitivity and realism. Minor contradictions or insignificant discrepancies that do not affect the core of the prosecution case should not be grounds to reject otherwise reliable evidence.

The Court said that the same approach applies to the testimony of the mother of a child victim, who may be the only person in a position to speak about what happened to the child behind the closed doors of the home.

The Court observed that although the testimony of a solitary witness can sustain a conviction if found reliable, where the witness is closely related to the deceased and the accused and has faced a searching challenge, it is prudent to seek corroboration in the material particulars of the account.

In the present case, the prosecution relied substantially on the testimony of the child's mother, who was the sole eyewitness to the assault and killing. The defence challenged her credibility on the basis of omissions, improvements, contradictions and her conduct.

The Supreme Court examined the testimony against the medical, forensic and other evidence on record and found the core of her testimony reliable.

The Court also reiterated that a witness being related to the victim or accused does not, by itself, make the witness an interested witness. It observed that the two concepts are distinct, and the testimony of a related witness cannot be discarded merely because of the relationship.

“A related witness is one who is connected by blood or by marriage to the victim or to the accused, whereas an interested witness is one who has a motive to see the accused convicted for reasons other than the vindication of the truth, such as a pre-existing enmity or an expectation of gain”, the Court explained.

The Court highlighted that the witness in the present case was the wife of the accused and mother of the victim, not a stranger who might have ulterior motive against him. It opined that a mother would not ordinarily shield her child's murdered and instead implicate an innocent man.

“A woman in her position, in deposing to the rape and the murder of her own child, does not merely give evidence against a stranger. She testifies against her own husband, and in doing so she renounces her marriage, forfeits the shelter and the maintenance that the marriage afforded her, exposes herself to the hostility of the family into which she married, and courts the social opprobrium that in the milieu to which she belongs attaches to a woman who breaks her home. That she was willing to endure all of this in order to accuse the appellant powerfully attests to her credibility. A mother is, in the considered view of this Court, ordinarily the last person who would shield the murderer of her own child and substitute an innocent man in his place”, the court observed.

The Court further emphasised that the maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (meaning false in one thing, false in everything) is not a rule of law in India. Where a witness's testimony contains both reliable and unreliable portions, the court must separate the truth from exaggeration or falsehood and assess whether the trustworthy part can safely be relied upon, it held.

Also from the judgment - Supreme Court Commutes Death Sentence Awarded To Man Convicted For Rape- Murder Of 6-Year-Old Stepdaughter.