`Witnesses turning hostile make a mockery of judicial system’

NEW DELHI, OCT 6: The JMM bribery case has left in its wake a gaping hole of a phenomenal number of 47 witnesses who had turned hostile. A...

NEW DELHI, OCT 6: The JMM bribery case has left in its wake a gaping hole of a phenomenal number of 47 witnesses who had turned hostile. According to court judgments and several senior advocates, this has become a growing trend in crucial criminal trials involving prominent people.

Ironically, a few days prior to the verdict in the JMM case, the Special Judge Justice V.B. Gupta delivered a bold judgment in Tis Hazari and had told a hostile witnesses: “At the end of the trial, accused and witnesses leave the courtroom hand-in-hand with each other and they mock the

judicial system. The courts remain helpless and silent spectators.”

Delivering the judgment on September 22 Justice Gupta noted: “It would be pertinent to point out that earlier also this court had made observations in somewhat similar case of police officials and had asked the police commissioner to take suitable and necessary remedial measures but no tangible results have come so far…

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“It has not happened for the first time that in such a case witnesses including public servants have taken a somersault in the court at the time of deposition on oath but it is a regular feature in these cases where a police official is charged with demanding and accepting illegal gratification,” he added.

Senior criminal lawyers feel that the growing trend of witnesses turning hostile can seriously jeopardise the progress of criminal trials.

Says senior advocate Ashok Arora: “We have seen this in the BMW car accident case where the star witness turned hostile at the last minute. This happens mainly because there is no system in police to follow up on the statements which are made by witnesses.”

“It is also because there is no punishment against witnesses turning hostile, which could have acted as a deterrent,” he feels.

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Eminent criminal lawyer K.K. Luthra says: “Firstly, under the law the statement taken under Section 161 of CrPC need not be signed by the witness. So the police can record a statement and attribute it to the witness.”

“Not just that, the Punjab Police Rule, under which the CBI and Delhi Police operate, specifically bars from getting the signed,” he says, adding: “Secondly, sometimes witnesses are also made to turn hostile. There is a dishonourable procedure by which hostile witnesses are the fastest way for an acquittal.”

V.K. Ohri, another criminal lawyer points out: “In the JMM case, as soon as the first witness turned hostile, then the bail applications for everyone should have been cancelled. That is what happened in the Sanjay Gandhi case of Kissa Kursi Ka.”

He feels there is another reason for witnesses backing out. “There is fast growing trend of cases being filed to settle scores between the two parties. In which case the law should be amended so that in case of a false case, the petitioner would face the same punishment as would have been awarded to the convicted,” he says.