In all cases where corroboration is required, the nature and extent of corroboration that the Court should look to must necessarily vary with the circumstances of each case and also according to the particular circumstances of the offence charged.
There can, therefore, be no set formula which maybe of universal application.
However, there are certain guiding principles which will be of real help to the Presiding Officer in this behalf. These principles have been succinctly laid down in King vs. Baskerville, 1916(2) KB. 658 which is the locus classicus on the subject.
One of the important principles according to it is that wherever corroboration is required, what should be looked into is not independent corroboration of every circumstance in the sense that there should be independent evidence which by itself de hors the testimony of the complainant or the accomplice be sufficient to sustain conviction.
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As Lord Reading says:
“Indeed, if it were required that the accomplice should be confirmed in every detail of the crime, his evidence would not be essential to the case, it would be merely confirmatory of other and independent testimony”.
All that is required is that there must be “some additional evidence rendering it probable that the story of the accomplice (or complainant) is true and that it is reasonably safe to act upon it”.
The second principle is that the corroborative evidence must not only make it safe to believe that the crime was committed but also iriustin some way reasonably connect or tend to connect the accused with it by confirming in some material particular the testimony of the accomplice or complainant that the accused had committed the crime.
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This does not, however, mean that the corroboration as to identity must extend to all the circumstances necessary to identify the accused with the offence. It is nevertheless essential that there should be independent evidence which will make it reasonably safe to believe the witness’s story that the accused was the one among those who committed the offence.
The reason for this part of the rule is that “a man who has been guilty of a crime himself will always be able to relate the facts of the case, and if the confirmation be only on the truth of that history, without indentifying the persons, that is really no corroboration at all. It would not at all tend to show that the party accused participated in it.”
The third principle is that the corroboration must come from independent source or sources other than tainted.
Ordinarily, therefore, the testimony of one accomplice would not be sufficient to corroborate that of another. But of course, the circumstances may be such as to make it safe to dispense with the necessity of corroboration and in those special circumstances a conviction would not be illegal.
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The fourth principle is that the corroboration need not be by direct evidence that the accused committed the crime. It is sufficient even if it is circumstantial evidence as to his connection with the crime, were it otherwise “many crimes which are usually committed in secret, such as incest, offences with females (or unnatural offences) could never be brought to justice”.