Click to play videoNew Delhi: Witness protection is the most urgent reform needed in the criminal justice system of our country, says most of the legal fraternity. But is it feasible to put ‘witness protection’ in place in a country like ours?
"We would not have seen a Zahira Sheikh or Shyan Munshi had there been a witnesses protection programme under the given law and order situation in our country," says Bina Ramani—key witness in the Jessica Lall murder case.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks in the delivery of justice in the Jessica
Lall murder case was that witnesses kept turning hostile. To combat the problem, senior lawyers feel people influencing or inducing witnesses must be severely dealt with by the court.
"Intimidating a witness is not merely a penal offense but its also a contempt of court, for which a person can be sent behind bars for many years," senior advocate Prashant Bhushan says.
Retired IPS officer Prakash Singh says that a witness protection programme is not feasible with the given infrastructure of our country.
"It will be expensive and would also require a lot of administrative arrangement on the part of the state to give protection to the witnesses. It has to be limited to some cases only," Singh says.
He adds that a witness protection programme will not be effective, because its not just the politically powerful people who subvert justice, but many a times even the investigating officers try to influence a case.
"In many cases the police concocts a story, frames people, writes out a completely false statement under section 161 of the witness, naturally the witness will turn hostile in this case," Singh says.
A witness protection programme is perhaps not enough. The Indian judiciary needs to play a more proactive role in taking action against those who like to wield some sort of an influence over the witnesses.
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