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Laltu Ghosh v. The State of West Bengal

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 222Decided 19 Feb 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 312 of 2010
Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar · Justice Dinesh Maheshwari

Background

Following a boundary dispute between neighbours, the appellant's father allegedly called the victim out of his house, picked a quarrel, and instigated the appellant and his brother to attack him; the appellant allegedly stabbed the victim in the abdomen and his brother stabbed him in the back as he tried to flee. The victim gave a statement to a doctor before dying, which was treated as a dying declaration. The trial court acquitted all four accused, but the State's appeal led the Calcutta High Court to convict the appellant (the co-accused having died or been found a juvenile during the appeal). The appellant challenged this conviction before the Supreme Court, arguing the eyewitnesses (the victim's own son and wife) were unreliable interested witnesses and that the dying declaration was shaky.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that close relatives of a victim are not automatically "interested" witnesses merely by relation: a witness is only "interested" if they stand to gain some benefit from the case's outcome beyond seeing justice done, and here the son's and wife's testimony was found consistent, natural, and unshaken in cross-examination. The Court also upheld reliance on the dying declaration, noting it was recorded by an independent doctor with no connection to either side, was corroborated by the eyewitness accounts, and that there was no rule requiring a dying declaration to be independently corroborated if it was otherwise found trustworthy. Finding the High Court had properly re-appreciated the evidence and given valid, substantial reasons for reversing the trial court's acquittal, the Supreme Court found no ground to interfere and dismissed the appeal, upholding the conviction.

Lesson Learnt

A victim's close family members are not disqualified as witnesses simply because they are related to the victim: courts look at whether their testimony is consistent and credible, not merely at the relationship, and a trustworthy dying declaration corroborated by eyewitnesses can safely sustain a conviction even after an initial trial-court acquittal.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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