Nasar Ali vs The State Of Uttar Pradesh

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 150 of 1956

Decision Date: 14 February 1957

Coram: KAPUR J.

In the matter titled Nasar Ali versus the State of Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on 14 February 1957. The case was presented before a bench composed of Justice Kapur, who authored the opinion. The petitioner was Nasar Ali, and the respondent was the State of Uttar Pradesh. The judgment fell under the category of a first‑in‑formation report and examined the use of the burden of proof in criminal proceedings, specifically addressing whether a witness whose testimony is partially disbelieved should be rejected entirely.

The headnote of the judgment explained that a first information report is not a substantive piece of evidence. It may be used only to support the statement of its maker under section 157 of the Evidence Act, or to contradict that statement under section 145 of the same Act. The report cannot be employed as evidence against its maker if he becomes an accused, nor can it be used to corroborate or contradict other witnesses. The Court reiterated the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that an accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that the prosecution bears the burden of establishing guilt, subject to any statutory exception. The maxim “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” has not been generally accepted in Indian jurisdictions and does not constitute a rule of law; it is merely a cautionary principle. Accordingly, the doctrine only influences the weight assigned to evidence in particular circumstances and does not mandate the automatic exclusion of a witness’s testimony.

The case arose in criminal appellate jurisdiction as Criminal Appeal No 150 of 1956. The appeal was filed by special leave against a judgment dated 18 October 1955 of the Allahabad High Court in Government Appeal No 60 of 1953. That judgment itself was based on a decision dated 8 July 1952 of the Sessions Judge at Bareilly in Criminal Sessions Trial No 27 of 1952. Counsel for the appellant and counsel for the respondent were instructed, though their names are omitted in this summary.

According to the Court’s factual findings, the appellant, together with another accused named Qudrat Ullah, faced trial for the murder of a person identified as Sabir. Sabir was charged under section 302 read with section 114 of the Indian Penal Code for abetment, while the appellant was charged under section 302 alone. The Bareilly Sessions Judge acquitted both accused. The State appealed only against the appellant, resulting in the High Court overturning his acquittal, convicting him under section 302, and sentencing him to transportation for life. The appellant then sought special leave to challenge the High Court’s decision.

The facts that gave rise to the appeal were as follows: Sabir was murdered on 11 May 1951 at approximately 6:30 p.m. The First Information Report was filed by Qudrat Ullah at 6:45 p.m., roughly fifteen minutes after the incident. The prosecution alleged that an exchange of abusive remarks occurred between the deceased and the appellant near the shop of the first informant, Qudrat Ullah. The dispute allegedly began when the deceased, seated below Qudrat Ullah’s shop, questioned the appellant’s disheveled appearance, which angered the appellant and led to verbal abuse. Witnesses of the prosecution arrived at the scene, observed the appellant and the deceased grappling, and reported that the appellant requested a knife from Qudrat Ullah, which was handed over. The appellant is alleged to have used that knife, identified as Exhibit II, to stab the deceased before fleeing.

According to the prosecution, Qudrat Ullah, who was the other accused, filed the First Information Report at 6:45 p.m. on the same day, which was within about fifteen minutes of the murder. The prosecution alleged that an exchange of abusive remarks occurred between the deceased and the appellant near Qudrat Ullah’s shop, which also served as the residence of the informant. The quarrel, the prosecution said, began on the evening of the incident when Qudrat Ullah was seated inside his shop and the deceased was sitting just below it. At that moment the appellant emerged from his own house and, upon seeing the deceased, was asked by the latter why he appeared in a dishevelled condition. The question offended the appellant and led to a verbal confrontation between the two men. When the noise was heard, prosecution witnesses arrived at the scene and observed the appellant and the deceased grappling with each other. The appellant is alleged to have requested that Qudrat Ullah hand him a knife; the informant complied and handed over a knife identified as Exhibit II. Using that knife, the appellant is said to have stabbed the deceased and then fled the scene. As a result of the wounds, the deceased fell in front of Qudrat Ullah’s shop; some witnesses stated that he fell upon a wooden plank placed there. After the assault, Qudrat Ullah retrieved the knife that the appellant had dropped, placed the injured man in a rickshaw, and took him to a hospital. From the hospital the wounded person was taken to the police station, where Qudrat Ullah prepared the First Information Report. An objection was raised to the admissibility of that report on the ground that it had been made by a co‑accused. The court noted that a First Information Report is not a substantive piece of evidence; it may only be used to corroborate the maker’s statement under section 157 of the Evidence Act or to contradict it under section 145. It cannot be used against the maker if he becomes an accused, nor can it be used to corroborate or contradict other witnesses. Consequently, the report was held not to be evidence in this trial. The Sub‑Inspector proceeded to the spot, began the investigation, and arrested the appellant at his house on the same evening. A post‑mortem examination disclosed injuries to the deceased, and the medical officer testified that death resulted from shock and haemorrhage due to a punctured chest wound that damaged the lungs, injuries that could be inflicted by a sharp‑edged weapon. The appellant and the deceased were members of the same Jogi sect, and evidence showed that they were on friendly terms, as were the deceased and Qudrat Ullah, who was a butcher and operated a shop that formed part of his house. The appellant’s house was adjacent to Qudrat Ullah’s shop. The eye‑witnesses identified by the prosecution were Yad Ali (PW 1), Banne (PW 2) and Mohd Ahmed (PW 3). After being informed of the incident by the deceased’s sister, Ashraft (PW 4) went to the location.

In this case, the Court described that after the death of the deceased, witness Ashraft went to the spot later and found the deceased lying unconscious. The younger brother of the deceased, Shakir, who arrived near the shop of Qudrat Ullah, heard the appellant and the deceased exchanging abuses, but the Court noted that he was not a witness to the assault because at that moment he had gone, at the request of Qudrat Ullah, to fill his chillum for the hookka; when he returned he found the deceased lying unconscious and the appellant fleeing toward his own house. The Court then recounted the testimony of Yad Ali, identified as P.W. 1, who stated that he heard an exchange of abuses between the deceased and the appellant and, after moving about four or five paces, saw them grappling with each other. According to his evidence, the appellant had the deceased “in his grip”, asked Qudrat Ullah to hand over a knife, received the knife, stabbed the deceased, and then escaped to his house. The statements of Banne, identified as P.W. 2, and of Mohd Ahmed, identified as P.W. 3, were reported to be similar to that of Yad Ali. The learned Sessions Judge did not accept this evidence and consequently acquitted both the accused. The State filed an appeal only against the appellant, and the High Court allowed that appeal. The High Court observed, “We may concede that the eye‑witnesses have falsely implicated Qudrat Ullah by deposing that he handed over his knife to the respondent on his demand. There was no enmity between him and Sabir and he had no motive to get him killed by the respondent. It does not at all appear probable that after abetting the murder of Sabir he at once took him on a rickshaw to the hospital and from there went at once to the police station and lodged a report against the respondent. This conduct of Qudrat Ullah is so inconsistent with the part said to have been played by him in the occurrence that we have little hesitation in rejecting the evidence about the part played by him.” Nevertheless, the High Court accepted the testimony of the eye‑witnesses as establishing the appellant’s guilt, stating: “We are satisfied that the prosecution has fully established the case against the respondent. There is not the slightest doubt about his guilt. The presumption of innocence has been fully rebutted by the prosecution. The case against him does not become doubtful merely because the learned Sessions Judge said that there was a doubt about his guilt.” The learned judges further concluded that the view taken by the trial judge was “one which no reasonable person could have taken. It was a wholly erroneous view of the evidence which has resulted in gross miscarriage of justice inasmuch as a murderer escapes punishment.” Considering the circumstances of the case and a degree of provocation, the High Court sentenced the appellant to life imprisonment with transportation for life. The Court also noted that a passage in the High Court’s judgment appeared “disconsolate and indicative of a wrong approach in deciding the guilt of an accused person.”

In this case the Court observed that the High Court’s method of determining the accused’s guilt was fundamentally flawed. Although the trial judges acknowledged the principle that the burden of proof does not rest on the accused, one of their statements came perilously close to shifting that burden onto the accused. The High Court had remarked: “The respondent himself did not have the courage to say that he did not find them at the spot. If he were innocent, he must have come out of his house immediately on hearing the noise and must have known who was present there and who was not.” The Court held that this passage strikes at the core of criminal jurisprudence, which presumes an accused person to be innocent until proven guilty, and therefore it was necessary to restate the rule articulated by leading authorities that “it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt subject to any statutory exception.” The appellant further contended that the witnesses had falsely implicated Qudrat Ullah and that, on that basis, the testimony of those witnesses should also have been rejected against the appellant. Relying on the well‑known maxim “falsus in uno falsus in omnibus,” the appellant argued that because the same witnesses had not been believed regarding Qudrat Ullah, their evidence could not be accepted to convict the appellant. The Court noted that this maxim has not attained general acceptance in Indian jurisdictions and does not constitute a binding rule of law; it is merely a cautionary principle indicating that such testimony may be disregarded, but it does not compel a court to do so. An American commentator was cited, observing that the principle concerns only the weight of evidence and does not impose a mandatory evidentiary rule. Counsel for the appellant also referred to an unreported Privy Council decision, Chaubarja Singh v. Bhuneshwari Prasal Pal, in which it was stated: “The defendant’s own evidence and that of several of his witnesses is of no use to him. He cannot contend that any court of law can place reliance on the oath of people who have admittedly given false evidence upon the other branches of the case.” The Court considered this passage to provide at best a slender foundation for elevating the doctrine above a rule of caution, and noted that the Privy Council had not given decisive endorsement to the maxim, which has been described in authoritative works on evidence as “worthless,” “absolutely false as a maxim of life,” and “in practice pernicious.”

The Court observed that the doctrine in question rested on a very thin basis, if any basis at all, for being elevated beyond a mere rule of caution. It further held that the Privy Council could not be said to have granted its strong approval to such a controversial rule, especially when the rule had been described in respected works on the law of evidence as “worthless,” “absolutely false as a maxim of life,” and “in practice pernicious.” The High Court, however, did take into account the testimony of witnesses concerning the role of Qudrat Ullah in the commission of the offence. After weighing that evidence, the High Court remarked that while the learned Sessions Judge had been correct in acquitting Qudrat Ullah, he had been wholly incorrect in acquitting the respondent, whose guilt, the High Court said, left “not the slightest doubt.” The Court noted that the direct evidence presented formed a clear case against the respondent and that there was no reasonable justification for ignoring it. In further discussion of the witnesses’ statements and the discrepancies highlighted by the appellant, the High Court reiterated that there was “not the slightest doubt about his guilt.” The judgment also referenced Wigmore on Evidence, Volume III, paragraph 1009, to support its reasoning.

Because the appellant raised two specific contentions and because the case involved a reversal of an earlier acquittal, the Court permitted counsel for the appellant to examine the evidence in detail. The counsel analysed the material, drew the Court’s attention to the salient features, highlighted inconsistencies in the witnesses’ statements, and pointed out improbabilities in the case. After reviewing these submissions, the Court concluded that the learned judges of the High Court had been justified in reaching their conclusion and that the trial judge’s view had rightly been displaced. Upon a fresh review of the prosecution witnesses’ evidence, the Court found that the appellant had been correctly convicted. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed, the judgment of the High Court was affirmed, and the appeal was officially dismissed.