New Delhi: Ninety seconds enough for a witness to remember even after seven-and-a-half years the faces of the assailants who killed his friend and seriously injured another passer by by firing at them, the Supreme Court has said.
"We are of the opinion that under the given circumstances and keeping in view the nature of incident, 90 seconds was too long a period which could enable the eye-witness to watch the accused persons and such a horrible experience would not be easily forgotten," an apex court bench of Justice J Chelameswar and Justice AK Sikri said in its judgement on Friday.
"Death of a friend and near-death experience by the witness himself would be etched in the memory for long. Therefore, faces of accused persons would not have been forgotten even after 7 years," said Justice Sikri speaking for the bench.
The court further said: "Whether a particular event or the faces of a person could be remembered would depend upon the circumstances under which those faces are seen. One cannot lose sight of the fact that here is a case where the two accused persons are the assailants who had shot dead Varun Kumar, companion of Naveen Sharma. Thereafter, they had fired at Kamaljit Singh as well. "
The court said that for Kamaljit Singh - seriously injured passer-by - it was "clearly a horror scene resulting into traumatic experience. In a case like this, even when these two assailants had remained before his face for 90 seconds, these 90 seconds were sufficiently long time to observe them closely and the person encountering such an event would not forget those faces even for a life time, what to talk for 7 years that have elapsed in between."
To buttress its reasoning, the court referred to an anecdote which says, "Once a friend of Einstein, the renowned scientist who invented the theory of relativity, asked him to explain that theory. Mr. Einstein explained it in a simple manner for common man's understanding as under: If a boy is sitting with his girlfriend/lover, he would feel the time fly away and 60 minutes would seem as 60 seconds. On the other hand, if a person puts his finger in hot boiling water, 60 seconds would feel like 60 minutes. This is the theory of relativity."
The court said this while rejecting the contention by the counsel appearing for Pargan Singh and Harminder Singh - convicted for life - that when they were totally unknown faces to prosecution witnesses Kamaljit Singh and Naveen Sharma and the incident lasted for one and half minute, it was beyond comprehension that these two persons would remember the faces of the perpetrators even after seven and a half year.
Having said this it was argued that both Pargan Singh and Harminder Singh were being falsely framed in the crime which they had not committed.
The court noted that the high court has found that the testimony of the injured victim Kamajit Singh and Naveen Sharma - who had accompanied the deceased Varun Kumar to the bank to draw cash on the day of incident - was "consistent on material points; that there were no material improvements or material contradictions which could shake the veracity of their version.
The matter relates to the murder of one Varun Kumar, who was going to his office carrying Rs. four lakhs in cash, by two assailants in a busy market of Phagwara March 25, 1999. The assailants were arrested more than seven years after the incident on August 7, 2006.
They were arrested following a tip-off by one Vishwa Mitter that two accused - Pargan Singh and Harminder Singh - had told him that they had killed Varun Kumar and injured one Kamaljit Singh.
Kapurthala session judge had convicted the accused Sep 25, 2008, and awarded them life imprisonment along with fine.
Their conviction and sentencing was upheld by the Punjab and Haryana High Court December 13, 2012.
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