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PETITIONER: VEMIREDDY SATYANARAYAN REDDY AND THREE OTHERS
Vs.
RESPONDENT: THE STATE OF HYDERABAD.
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 14/03/1956
BENCH: AIYAR, N. CHANDRASEKHARA BENCH: AIYAR, N. CHANDRASEKHARA BOSE, VIVIAN
CITATION: 1956 AIR 379 1956 SCR 247
ACT: Crime, perpetration of-A person present but not aiding or abetting-Whether principal or accessory-Corroboration of the statement of a single witness against accused-What the law requires.
HEADNOTE: There is no warrant for the extreme proposition that if a man sees the perpetration of a crime and does not give information of it to anyone else, he might well be regarded in law as an accomplice and that he could be put in the dock with the actual criminals. A person may be present, and, if not aiding and abetting, be neither principal nor accessory; as, if A, happens to be present at a murder and takes no part in it, nor endeavours to prevent it, or to apprehend the murderer, this course of conduct will not of itself render him either principal or accessory. Russell on Crime, 10th Edition, p. 1846, referred to. 33 248 In the matter of corroboration of the evidence of a single witness against the accused what the law requires is that there should be such corroboration of the materi...