History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.332

v4.c63.332

After the witnesses have deposed the chief justice and sabhyas have to consider the depositions of witnesses (as Kāt. 340 provides)⁵³¹. The Court has to find out which set of witnesses are to be believed and what witnesses are perjured. Perjury entailed, according to dharmaśāstra works, both secular and other-worldly consequences. Āp. Dh. S. (II. 11. 29. 8–9) states: 'When a witness deposes falsely the king should fine him and, in addition, the witness incurs hell after death' and Gaut. provides (XIII. 7 and 23), 'a witness telling the truth goes to heaven, but falls into hell if he does the reverse and when he deposes falsely he is to be censured and fined'. Manu VIII. 118 states that witnesses depose falsely through covetousness, wrong ideas, fear, friendship, sexual passion, wrath, ignorance and minority and prescribes (VIII. 120-122) varying fines for perjury arising from these several causes. Bṛ. (S. B. E. vol. 33 p. 301 v. 21) regards⁵³² a corrupt judge, a perjured witness and the murderer of a brāhmaṇa as equally sinful. Yāj. II. 81 and Kāt. (407) prescribe⁵³³ that the litigant who procures perjured evidence and the witnesses guilty of perjury should each be separately fined double the amount of the fine prescribed for defeat in various disputes and a brāhmaṇa (guilty of doing the same) should be banished from the country⁵³⁴ (but not fined). But when a person (of any of the three castes other than brāhmaṇa) is frequently guilty of perjury he should be fined and given physical punishment (as cutting the tongue or death) and a similarly guilty brāhmaṇa should be fined and banished (or degraded by being carried naked through the streets or deprived of his house). The Mit. on Yāj. II. 81 says that when Manu prescribes (VIII. 380) that a brāhmaṇa guilty of a sin is not to be awarded death or corporal punishment and that he is to be banished with all his wealth, he refers to the brāhmaṇa being a first offender and not a confirmed one. Manu VIII. 108 says 'where within seven days from deposing in a cause a (serious or painful) disease or fire or the death of a relative befalls a witness, he should be (being held as a false witness owing to these portentous happenings) made to pay the debt in dispute to the opposite side and a fine to the king.' The Sm. C. (II. p. 94) explains that this applies to a witness who is the only one on a disputed matter such as a messenger and the king or judge should wait for seven days to see whether any of these calamities befalls that witness and then hold him to be perjured. Kāt. (410) contains⁵³⁵ a similar rule, but he states that the king should wait one, two or three weeks or up to 45 days according to the value of the matter in dispute and the caste of the deponent. Manu VIII. 117 (= Viṣṇu Dh. S. VIII. 40) prescribes that in whatever lawsuit it is established that witnesses perjured themselves, the judge should hear it again (from the beginning) or if the suit has ended he should set aside the decision and examine it again.