Evidence of hostile witness carries weight: Apex court

Judges should not treat as erased the evidence tendered by a witness whom the prosecution terms as hostile during a trial, the Supreme Court has said.

Judges should not treat as erased the evidence tendered by a witness whom the prosecution terms as hostile during a trial, the Supreme Court has said.

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"It is a settled legal proposition that the evidence of a prosecution witness cannot be rejected in toto merely because the prosecution chose to treat him as hostile and cross-examined him," the apex court bench of Justice BS Chauhan and Justice Dipak Misra said on Monday.

The court said this while upholding the Allahabad high court's verdict by which it reversed the acquittal of Ramesh Harijan in a case of rape and causing the death of a minor child in Uttar Pradesh in 1996.