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A Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud and Justice Indira Banerjee in P. Ramesh vs. State observed that merely because child witnesses in a criminal case were unable to identify the person before whom they were deposing, i.e., the judge and the lawyers, they cannot be termed as incompetent.
The Trial Judge did not record the evidence of prosecution witnesses in a murder case who were minor children, on the ground that they were unable to identify the persons before whom they were deposing. The child witnesses stated that they had come to depose in evidence about the circumstances leading to the death of their mother. However, the accused was convicted based on other evidence under Section 302 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code by the Trial Court.
The High Court found the grounds of the Trial Judge of denying the child witnesses to give evidence, to be erroneous. The Apex Court bench agreed with the High Court’s view and added that such a reason would result in a miscarriage of justice. The bench said that the trial judge was required to see if the children were in a fit and competent state of mind to depose and understood its purpose. Relevant questions must be posed to the child witness before recording their evidence, to determine their capacity to answer rationally and to determine “whether the child has the intellectual and cognitive skills to recollect and narrate the incidents of the crime”, added the Court.
The bench while explaining the procedure to determine the competency of a child witness observed that no precise rule can be laid down regarding the degree of intelligence and knowledge of the child and the judge is at liberty to test the capacity of a child witness. The court noted, “In criminal proceedings, a person of any age is competent to give evidence if she/he is able to (i) understand questions put as a witness; and (ii) give such answers to the questions that can be understood.”
The Apex court dismissed the appeal and referred to a judgment in Atma Ram vs. State of Rajasthan to uphold the order of retrial on the limited point of rerecording statements of witnesses.
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