Appreciating the Evidence of sterling Witness

In Rai Sandeep @ Deepu vs. State of NCT of Delhi, (2012) 8 SCC 21, the Supreme Court commented about the quality of the sole testimony of the prosecutrix which could be made basis to convict the accused. It held :- “In our considered opinion, the 'sterling witness' should be of a very high quality and caliber whose version should, therefore, be unassailable. The Court considering the version of such witness should be in a position to accept it for its face value without any hesitation. To test the quality of such a witness, the status of the witness would be immaterial and what would be relevant is the truthfulness of the statement made by such a witness. What would be more relevant would be the consistency of the statement right from the starting point till the end, namely, at the time when the witness makes the initial statement and ultimately before the Court. It should be natural and consistent with the case of the prosecution qua the accused. There should not be any prevarication in the version of such a witness. The witness should be in a position to withstand the cross- examination of any length and strenuous it may be and under no circumstance should give room for any doubt as to the factum of the occurrence, the persons involved, as well as, the sequence of it. Such a version should have corelation with each and everyone of other supporting material such as the recoveries made, the weapons used, the manner of offence committed, the scientific evidence and the expert opinion. The said version should consistently match with the version of every other witness. It can even be stated that it should be akin to the test applied in the case of circumstantial evidence where there should not be any missing link in the chain of circumstances to hold the accused guilty of the offence alleged against him. Only if the version of such a witness qualifies the above test as well as all other similar such tests to be applied, it can be held that such a witness can be called as a 'sterling witness' whose version can be accepted by the Court without any corroboration and based on which the guilty can be punished. To be more precise, the version of the said witness on the core spectrum of the crime should remain intact while all other attendant materials, namely, oral, documentary and material objects should match the said version in material particulars in order to enable the Court trying the offence to rely on the core version to sieve the other supporting materials for holding the offender guilty of the charge alleged.” In Tameezuddin @ Tammu v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2009) 15 SCC 566, the Supreme Court held :- 'It is true that in a case of rape the evidence of the Prosecutrix must be given predominant consideration, but to hold that this evidence has to be accepted even if the story is improbable and belies logic, would be doing violence to the very principles which govern the appreciation of evidence in a criminal matter.' IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI DECIDED ON : 29th MAY, 2015 CRL.A.No.369/2014 GAURAV MAGGO Vs THE STATE OF NCT, DELHI CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE S.P.GARG