On Friday, the Supreme Court said that just because someone is a close relative or connected to a case (an “interested witness”), their testimony shouldn’t be ignored. However, it should be looked at more carefully.
In this case, a man named George was found guilty of murder in 2015. The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had upheld George’s conviction. But, the Supreme Court disagreed.
The Supreme Court judges, Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan, pointed out that George’s conviction relied only on the testimony of the father of the victim. They noted that the same father was not believed when it came to the other two suspects, which made things strange. The judges wondered how the court could trust the father’s statement for George but not for the others involved.
The high court had doubts about the father’s story and gave the other two men a chance to go free. They found it hard to believe that the father had seen the incident as he claimed.
Based on all of this, the Supreme Court said it was wrong for the high court to convict George while letting the other two go free. They ruled that George’s conviction was based on guesswork and not solid proof.
Therefore, the Supreme Court canceled the high court’s decision from November 2019 and set George free from all charges. They instructed that he should be released unless he was needed for any other case.
The incident happened in May 2015 in Thoothukudi district when the father reported that his son was attacked by three men while he was chatting with friends outside a church.
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