Witness protection: a study of global practices to evolve a policy for India

Abstract

Any society survives the test of time only on the basis of the strength of the foundations of law on which it stands. Justice is the comer stone of any democracy and delivering justice in a free and fair manner is the onerous responsibility of the government of the day. Many governments changed but none can claim that they have discharged their duties in delivering justice at all times to all sections of the society in a free and fair manner. Justice is very vital in the entire process of human evolutions. The dynamics in our country (INDIA) in providing justice are very onerous and difficult because of its own uniqueness in terms of unity in diversity. The role of the witness is very importance in delivering justice because entire jurisprudence is based on the narration of the witness to a particular incidence and convincing the court beyond the reasonable doubt, to get a conviction of the accused. Generally there are two types of witness the proactive one and the reactive one in our country the second one is more prevalent because of the treatment meted out to the witness by the law enforcing agencies and the legal system. More often the witness is harassed by the officials and other legal functionaries and the inordinate delay in the entire court proceedings leaves him helpless and exhausted. This is the main reason why very few people are willing to be a witness to any proceedings. This lacuna is widely exploited by the antisocial elements and has a bad influence on the society. a comprehensive witness protection programme is required for the better delivery of the justice in the society. This will give faster and fair justice to the society. This will lead to upholding the human values and helps in protection of the human rights. Certain inherent aberrations have crept in the society where in they hinder and hamper the delivering the justice, to rectify the inherent aberrations to deliver justice in a free and fair manner, justice process involving the role of investigating agencies and court proceedings should be streamlined and systematically dealt. So that no lacuna injustice delivering system. Shoddy investigations, witness turning hostile, lengthy court proceedings have vitiated the entire process of delivering justice in a free and fair manner in a stipulated time. Out of these the hostile witness and the witness protection system form the comer stone of delivering the justice if a witness who confesses to an event before investigating agency and turns hostile in the courts weaken the prosecution case considerably damage the fair judicial process. To curb such a menace we need a comprehensive witness protection programme. The world's best practices like the U S, Canada, Australia, South Africa and other European countries have been comparatively studied in the present research and a comprehensive policy document is suggested for India