The Delhi High Court verdict in the Jessica Lall case has highlighted once again how effective prosecution is so crucially dependant on witnesses playing their required role. Case after case in this country has been rendered meaningless precisely because those whose testimony is material to the investigation choose to retract it in court, for reasons ranging from fear of personal safety to material gratification. In the Jessica Lall case, for instance, no less than 32 witnesses — including three eyewitnesses to the murder — had turned hostile. It led the high court to declare that “courts must put an end to this kind of attitude of witnesses turning hostile in order to thwart the course of justice”.

This new focus of recent court judgments on aspects considered relatively peripheral to the criminal justice regime, like perjury and witness protection, is extremely valuable. Consider, for instance, the unforgiving approach the US system adopts to perjurors. At the moment the once powerful chief of staff to the US vice-president, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, is charged for the crime of perjury and obstruction of justice in the case involving the outing of CIA agent, Valerie Plame. He has had to resign of course, and now awaits the verdict of a grand jury. India, in contrast, has been remarkably lackadaisical about perjury and has allowed innumerable criminals over the years to escape the consequences of their reprehensible acts despite provisions in the law to address it.

The system is ripe for reform. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court appeared to be addressing precisely this lacunae when it sentenced Zaheera Sheikh to one year of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000. The recommendation of the Malimath Committee making it mandatory for statements of witnesses in cases involving serious crimes to be recorded before a magistrate needs to be mainstreamed. There is also a new Bill in Parliament allowing the video recording of confessions. Useful steps, certainly. But most important of all is for witnesses to internalise the importance of the role they are called upon to play. The state should both expedite this process and ensure that witnesses are fully protected and empowered.