Introduction A witness is considered to be an independent witness, unless he or she springs from sources which are likely to be tainted, which basically means that the witness has a stake in ensuring that the accused is found guilty and sent to prison1.  In Raju  alias Balachandran v. State of Tamil Nadu2, the court has explained the four categories of witnesses relevant to the present context i.e. a third party disinterested and unrelated witness; a third party interested witness; a related and therefore an interested witness having an interest in seeing the accused punished; a related and therefore an interested witness having an interest in seeing the accused punished and has some enmity with the accused3. The scope of this paper shall be confined to the fourth kind of witness and deal with the way the courts appreciate and weigh ....