appreciation of evidence
What is appreciation of evidence? What is the standard through which the court hold s that the a particular fact in issue has been proved?
Appreciation of evidence is a term used to refer to the consideration or examination of the evidence by the court. It involves weighing the credibility and reliability of the evidence presented in the particular case.
The Supreme Court has reiterated two principles with regard to appreciation of evidence in a criminal case; that “there is no rule of any presumption that the evidence of a related witness will always be an interested one or that such witness will have only a hostile attitude towards the accused facing trial.”
In a 1999 Supreme Court case, the court held that (State of Rajasthan v. Teja Ram, (1999) 3 SCC 507) “to establish the principle where the witnesses are the close relatives of the deceased thus, “when any incident happens in a dwelling house, the most natural witnesses would be the inmates of that house. It is unpragmatic to ignore such natural witnesses and insist on outsiders who would not have even seen anything.”