SC approves setting up of witness protection scheme
The Supreme Court yesterday put in place a longawaited witness protection scheme for the safety of witnesses faced with threat to life and harassments to them or their families in criminal cases’ trial.
Supporting the ‘Witness Protection Scheme, 2018’ prepared by the government , a bench of Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer said: “It shall be the law under Article 141/142 of the constitution till the enactment of suitable parliamentary and/or state legislations on the subject.”
The witness protection scheme essentially involves concealing the identity of the witness faced with threat, prohibits the publication or revealing, in any manner, the identity of the witness during investigation, trial and post-trial stage.
Describing the condition of witnesses as “pathetic”, Justice Sikri said: “Because of the lack of witness protection programme in India and the treatment that is meted out to them, there is a tendency of reluctance in coming forward and making statement during the investigation.”
“One of the main reasons for witnesses to turn hostile is that they are not accorded appropriate protection by the state. It is a harsh reality, particularly, in those cases where the accused persons/criminals are tried for heinous offences, or where the accused persons are influential persons or in a dominating position,” the judges said.
This situation, the court said, “prevails because of the reason that the state has not undertaken any protective measure to ensure the safety of these witnesses, commonly known as witness protection’”.
The court ordered that the central and state governments enforce the witness protection scheme in letter and spirit.
The court ordered that “in all the district courts in India, vulnerable witness deposition complexes shall be set up by the States and Union Territories” and this “should be achieved within a period of one year.”
The witness protection measures would be proportionate to the threat perception and would include that witness and accused do not come face-to-face during investigation or trial, monitoring of mail and telephone calls, changing the telephone number of witness including providing him an unlisted number and other measures.
All this will be for a specific period and will not exceed three months at a time.
It may also include, the court said, “the option of the modification of the image of face of the witness including modification of the audio feed of the witness’ voice, so that he/she is not identified. It may also include change of identity or relocation of witnesses to other places” within the state or outside.