SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Khujji alias Surendra Tiwari Vs. State of Madhya PradeshCriminal Appeal No. 413 of 1982 It seems to be well settled by the decisions of this Court Bhagwan Singh v. State of Haryana SC1975; Rabinder Kumar Dey v. State of Orissa SC1976 and Syed Akbar v. State of Karnataka SC1979 that the evidence of a prosecution witness cannot be rejected in toto merely because the prosecution chose to treat him as hostile and cross-examined him. The evidence of such witnesses cannot be treated as effaced or washed off the record altogether but the same can be accepted to the extent their version is found to be dependable on a careful scrutiny thereof.