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PETITIONER: VADIVELU THEVAR
Vs.
RESPONDENT: THE STATE OF MADRAS(with connected appeal)
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 12/04/1957
BENCH: SINHA, BHUVNESHWAR P. BENCH: SINHA, BHUVNESHWAR P. JAGANNADHADAS, B. GAJENDRAGADKAR, P.B.
CITATION: 1957 AIR 614 1957 SCR 981
ACT: Murder--Conviction on the testimony of a single witnesS--Propriety--Capital sentence, if appropriate- Extenuating circumstance-Indian Evidence Act (1 of 1872), s. 134.
HEADNOTE: The appellants were charged with murder and convicted on the sole testimony of a witness. The first appellant was sentenced to death and the second to five years’ rigorous imprisonment. it was contended for them, inter alia, that the conviction and sentences should not be upheld because in a case involving a charge of murder the court should not, on the ground of prudence, convict an accused person upon the testimony of a single witness, and, in any case, impose the extreme penalty of law. Held, that the question whether in such a case the court could convict him depended upon the facts and circumstances of the case and unless corroboration was a statutory requirement, a court could act upon such evidence, though uncorroborated, except in cases where the nature of the testimony of the single witness itself required, as a matter of prudence, that corroboration should be insisted upon, as in the case of a chi...