PRAVAKAR BEHERA Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) For proof of a fact, law does not require plurality, but quality of evidence. Evidence is to be weighed and not counted. An order of conviction can be rested on the testimony of a solitary witness if the evidence is clear and cogent and is of an unimpeachable character. Upon hearing Mr. Prasant Mohanty, the learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. D. P. Sahoo, the learned Standing Counsel, I find that the evidence of the sole witness to the occurrence (P. W. 5) whose house had been set fire to in the evening of the 15th September, 1979 by the petitioner, as alleged, did not deserve credence and Mr. S. K. Panda, the learned Assistant Sessions Judge who tried the petitioner and convicted him under Section 436 of the Indian Penal Code sentencing him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of three years and Mr. P. Jena, the learned Sessions Judge, who heard and dismissed the appeal, had recorded unreasonable findings holding the petitioner guilty of the charge of arson based on the evidence of P. W. 5.

(2.) WHAT the court is concerned with is the intrinsic, value of the evidence of P. W. 5, She had, in her examination -in -chief, testified that by the time she came out of her house on hearing the sound of breaking of jute sticks, the petitioner had set fire to the roof by burning a jute stick and was setting fire to another place on the roof and when she caught him, the petitioner attempted to run away and in the process, fell down and while escaping from the clutches of P. W. 5. he dealt a kick on the person of P. W. 5. The evidence of P. W. 5 was that she cried out and when the co -villagers and her son (P. W. 6) came she named the petitioner to be the culprit. But in her cross -examination she had stated: '...We were in our house when the roof of the house caught fire. We also continued to stay on even when flames came out in the roof... I saw the accused first when I caught hold of him a little away from the point where I saw the fire on the roof....' These statements would lead one to the conclusion that she had not seen the petitioner actually setting fire to the roof of her house.

(3.) IF the petitioner had not been seen by P. W. 5, setting fire to the home, a belated statement made by her before P. Ws. 1, 3 and 4 (the daughter of P. W. 6) to the effect that the petitioner was the culprit would be of no consequence. P. W. 3 had for the first time deposed in the court regarding the statement of P. W. 5 naming the petitioner to be the author of the crime. Even assuming on the basis of the evidence of P. W. 5. that the petitioner was near about the scene at the time of occurrence, there could at best arise a suspicion regarding his complicity. But suspicion, however grave, cannot lead the proof of guilt.