TAKE ACTION AGAINST HOSTILE WITNESSES: HC

MUMBAI: Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court (HC) has recently directed all sessions courts across Maharashtra to initiate action against hostile witnesses in all appropriate cases, observing that respect for law cannot be ensured by threat of legal action, but time has come to send out a loud and clear message that witnesses turning hostile cannot be ignored or pardoned anymore.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to the menace of hostile witnesses, and we cannot find ourselves helpless as against the conduct of the hostile witnesses,” said the bench of justice Ravindra Gauge and justice BU Debadwar after noticing that five of seven important witnesses in a murder case before it had turned hostile.

“This would not only be a serious ailment/disease to the justice dispensation system but could as well be cancerous to the rule of law,” said the bench while reversing the conviction of Saraswati Landge, a resident of Ambejogai in Beed district.

An additional sessions judge at Ambejogai had on September 14, 2014, convicted the 73-yearold for murdering her husband, Ganpat.

The woman had moved in an appeal against her conviction and life imprisonment handed down to her by the trial court on several grounds. HC found force in the argument advanced by advocate Aniket Vagal on her behalf that five important witnesses had not supported the prosecution case, apart from the fact that there were several discrepancies in the evidence. “We have doubts as to whether a 65-years-old lady could have picked up a large stone weighing about 8kg, carried it to his room and dropped on face of the sleeping deceased,” said the bench.

HC also directed the trial court to initiate action against all hostile witnesses in the case. HC also issued directions to all principal district and sessions judges to circulate order to all additional district and sessions judges and other judicial officers “to apprise them as regards action to be initiated against hostile witnesses in appropriate cases.”