―30. As aforesaid, the evidence of Puransingh, Elavia and Mosin Burmawalla was held by the Trial Judge as accomplice evidence in that each of them had in one way or the other helped the accused in furthering their objectives. In such a case the duty of the court apprising the evidence clearly is to apply the double test as laid down in Sarwan Singh v. State (1902) 1 K.B. 882. The court, therefore, has first to see whether the evidence of an accomplice is reliable, and secondly, even if it is so, whether it is corroborated in material particulars by other independent evidence, direct or circumstantial. An Sarwan Singh's case 1957CriLJ1014 points out, the test of reliability is the same as the one applied to all witnesses. Therefore, it does not mean that an accomplice's evidence cannot be relied upon unless it is totally and absolutely blemishless. In majority of cases such is not the case and inspite of some discrepancies and other such infirmities, courts have often found it safe to act on the evidence of such witness. A case illustrating this proposition is to be found in Sarvanabohavan v. Madras 1966CriLJ949 where the evidence of the approver contained certain discrepancies and was also contradicted by the testimony of another witness and yet that evidence was held to pass the test of being credible and was accepted as it was also corroborated by other evidence. Regarding the second test, that is, of the necessity of corroboration, such corroboration need not, on the one hand, be of every particular given by an accomplice, and on the other hand, of only minor particulars. The corroboration must be adequate enough to afford the necessary assurance that the main story testified by the accomplice can be reasonable and safely accepted as true. Ramanlal v. The State , AIR 1960 SC 961 .
