“Almost 100 people were there at the party when she was shot at point blank, but no one except a few had the courage to raise their voice,” the court observed.

“Witnesses turning hostile appears to be the order of day,” observed the two Judges today adding that judiciary also has to shoulder the responsibility in stopping this practice.

Justices R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin said: “The courts must put an end to this kind of attitude of witnesses turning hostile in order to thwart the course of justice.”

Expressing their “surprise” at the long list of witnesses who resiled from their statements in this sensational case “which shocked the confidence of the society in the criminal justice system,” the court pointed out: “To our utter surprise, we found that during the trial as many as 32 witnesses including three eyewitnesses of the murder and one ballistic expert had to be declared hostile by the prosecution.”