Cross-examination before judgment can't be ignored: HC

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has held that details of the cross-examination cannot be ignored while passing a judgment. The court has remanded a case back to the Trial Court to be considered afresh after it found that the lower court had only considered information in the examination-in-chief while ignoring the crossexamination.

“It is well settled that one is required to consider the entire evidence as a whole with the other evidence on record. Mere considering the examination-in-chief and not considering the cross-examination cannot be considered as consideration of the evidence in its entirety,” the Division Bench of Justice B Veerappa and Justice Rajesh Rai K said. Kattemane Ganesha, who was convicted in a case of murder in 2015 by a Sessions Court in Madikeri, approached the HC against it.

Related to the same incident, one KG Prema, who was also assaulted, approached the HC challenging the acquittal of fifteen others in the complaint filed by her. The incident dates back to 2002 and all the accused are from Maragodu Village in Madikeri.

The Trial Court had given its judgment in 2015 after which the matter reached the HC. The counsel for Kattemane Ganesha argued in the HC that the learned Sessions Judge has not considered and discussed the cross-examination portion of prosecution witnesses and thereby the entire judgment passed in the case is vitiated.

Therefore both the cases which are a case and a counter case have to be remitted to the lower court even if judgment in one of them is set-aside. The HC said that as per the Evidence Act, appreciation of evidence includes consideration of examination-in-chief, cross-examination and re-examination.

The HC held that “the learned Sessions Judge is not justified in ignoring the cross-examination portion of prosecution witnesses while passing the judgment and the same has resulted in miscarriage of justice.” In Kattemane Ganesha’s case, the cross-examination was not considered and therefore the judgment was set aside.

“Since these two cases arise out of the same incident and are case and counter case, the matter has to be remanded to the Trial Court. Remitting the case back to the lower court the HC directed it “to pass fresh orders based on the examination-inchief as well as cross-examination of witnesses available on record, and after hearing the learned counsel for both the parties in both the cases, strictly in accordance with law, within a period of three months.”

However the lower court will consider the case based on the evidence already on record. “The learned Sessions Judge shall not permit any of the parties to lead evidence, and shall proceed only on the basis of the evidence available on record,” the HC said.