“The law nowhere states that evidence of child witness is required to be discarded altogether. Conversely, law recognises the child as a competent witness,” observed the Bombay high court last week while upholding the conviction and life sentence awarded to a police constable for killing his wife in their residence at Andheri police quarters.
The incident had taken place in 2011 and the accused had taken the defensive stand of total denial before the court but the judge convicted him after relying on the statement of the elder daughter of the accused who had witnessed the incident.
The prosecution’s case is that the accused Shatrughna Meshram (38) had in October 2011, a day after Diwali, killed his wife Kavita because he suspected she was involved in an extramarital affair.
Meshram killed his wife in front of their two minor daughters.
The couple’s elder daughter Vishakha (14) had told the court that her father was an alcoholic and used to quarrel with her mother a lot. In her statement, she had said that on the date of the incident when all of them were present in the house, her father had beaten up her mother and when her mother ran away to the balcony, he dragged her back inside and then stabbed her with a knife on her stomach, chest, hands and thighs.
The victim then attempted to run away again and fell down. It was after both the sisters started shouting and crying did the neighbours come to the rescue and took her to the police station from where she was taken to a hospital.
While upholding the conviction and life sentence of Meshram, the division bench of Justice V.K. Tahilramani and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi observed that the only ground on which Vishakha’s testimony is challenged is that she is a child witness and she was around nine-years-old at the time of incident and around 10-years-old at the time when she appeared as a witness in the court and hence there is a possibility that the victim could have been tutored.
However, the bench observed that possibility hardly existed in the instance case as a constable, Kute, had enquired with Vishaka immediately after the incident and she had disclosed the same facts at that point of time as well.
The judges also said that the only precaution expected is that the court should evaluate evidence of child witnesses carefully, the only reason being that they are susceptible to tutoring. “However, in the instant case as we do not find that there was any opportunity or occasion for the parents of Kavita to tutor Vishakha,” added the court while upholding Meshram’s conviction.
