Bengaluru: The high court Tuesday dismissed a petition by Kamakshipalya police seeking permission to cross-examine Ratnaprabha, mother of deceased Renukaswamy and a prosecution witness in the murder case in which actor Darshan is the prime accused.Police had challenged a Jan 17, 2026, trial court order rejecting their request to invoke Section 154 of the Indian Evidence Act, which allows a party to cross-examine its own witness with the court’s permission.Police argued that Ratnaprabha made statements during her deposition that were contrary to the prosecution’s case. They pointed to her claim that police identified Renukaswamy’s body using his ID card, although no such card was available in the case. They also cited call detail records and tower-location data showing contact between Ratnaprabha and the deceased on a particular mobile number, which she denied.Police also cited her statements on the alleged weapon and injuries found on Renukaswamy’s body, arguing that the discrepancies justified treating her as a hostile witness.Opposing the plea, Darshan and the other accused said Ratnaprabha had substantially supported the prosecution’s case and that isolated or vague statements were insufficient to declare her hostile.Justice M Nagaprasanna, after examining the material on record, observed that minor inconsistencies, stray answers and insignificant omissions cannot be exaggerated to declare a witness hostile. Citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Tamilmaran, the court said a witness’s entire deposition must be considered in context.“Ratnaprabha has not completely departed from what she stated in her examination-in-chief, nor has she disowned the substratum of the prosecution case. There is no demonstrable transfer of loyalty from the prosecution to the defence. A stray answer cannot be elevated into a wholesale abandonment of the prosecution case. A witness does not become hostile merely because every syllable uttered by the witness does not march to the drumbeat of the party who summoned her,” he stated.Justice Nagaprasanna also held that Section 154 cannot be used as a “procedural second innings” merely because a witness’s deposition does not fully support the prosecution’s case.“A stray statement cannot be metamorphosed into hostility, nor can an unguarded answer become a passport for the prosecution to cross-examine its own witness,” the judge said, dismissing the police petition.
