The Criminal Law Amendment Bill introduced in Parliament in 2003 was designed to prevent the evil of witnesses turning hostile. New sections were introduced to ensure that the evidence of central witnesses be recorded by the magistrate in certain cases where investigation is of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for seven years. Unfortunately, this provision was not passed by Parliament.

Widespread prevalence of perjury is symptomatic of the serious inadequacies marking the criminal justice system in this country. One glaring inadequacy, which has recently highlighted in legal discourse, is the lack of any witness protection programme, which often inhibits witnesses from coming forward to depose against the rich and the powerful. The Malimath Committee urged the government to enact a law to give protection to witnesses and their family members on the lines prevalent in the US and other countries. The US federal witness programme that was created in response to threats faced by the witnesses testifying against mobsters has been in existence since 1967. Round-the-clock protection has been provided to all witnesses who fear threats to their lives through the US Marshal Service. It has been used so far to rehabilitate some 8,000 witnesses and their 15,000 family members. Canada gave witness protection cover under its Witness Protection Act, 1996, to a Sikh woman who threw fresh light on the Kaniska Bombing Case.

A viable, sustainable witness protection programme is the need of the hour and we have to start immediately with a programme, however small, to prevent witnesses from turning hostile. The witness protection guidelines issued by the Delhi High Court in the case of Neelam Katara vs GOI and others (2003) could be a starting point.

... contd.