638 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
- For attaching this statutory incredibility, it would be necessary to determine whether the witness is an Accomplice. The term is not defined.
(i) An Accomplice is a person who is concerned with another or others in the commission of a crime. He is a participant. But it is not every participation in a crime which makes an accomplice. Much depends on the nature of the offence and the extent of the complicity of the witness in it.
5 W.R.Cr.59.
(ii) An Accomplice is a person who is a guilty associate in crime or who sustains such a relation to the criminal act, that he can be justly indicted with the Accused who is being tried.
27 Mad. 271.
§ Effect of Sections 120 and 133
The sections enumerate certain persons as being competent to give evidence. Question is, Are other persons not competent ? The sections are not to be understood to mean that these are the only persons who are competent and others are not. The effect of the sections is that all persons are competent including those mentioned in Sections 120 and 133.
The reason why it was necessary to specifically deal with these classes is, because under the earlier law they were incompetent. The ban against them had to be lifted and therefore the specific provisions relating to them. Other classes of persons were already deemed to be competent and it was unnecessary therefore to say anything about them.
The Effect of Sections 120 and 133 is this, that not only
(1) Parties to suits.
(2) Husbands and wives.
(3) Accomplices.
are competent witnesses, but
(1) Jurors and Assessors—Section 294 Cr. P. C.
(2) The Executor of a Will
(3) An Advocate for a party
may be competent witnesses in the case to which they are a party, although it is a cause in which they are interested.