The Madras High Court Bench here on Monday warned that it might be constrained to summon Union and State Home Secretaries if they did not spell out their stand by Thursday on making police protection for witnesses in criminal cases, a statutory requirement.
Justice N. Kirubakaran also expressed his displeasure over the government counsel not having obtained instructions despite a direction passed by the court on August 25 in view of steep decline in conviction rate due to witnesses being forced to turn hostile through threat and coercion.
The judge issued a similar warning in another case in which he had sought the views of the Centre and the State on enacting special laws on the lines of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999, for controlling organised crime committed through mercenaries.
In the first case, the judge had sought the information following a petition filed by an eye witness in a murder case challenging the refusal of a Sessions Court in Pudukottai district to recall the evidence adduced by him in favour of the accused due to threat to his life.
Expressing shock over the petitioner’s averments, the judge had said: “If the facts narrated by him are true, it is a very dangerous situation in which the witnesses are threatened and made hostile by the accused to obtain acquittal from criminal cases.
“The decline in the rate of conviction and the increase in the rate of acquittal in our country is due to the absence of protection to the witnesses. Witness protection is one of the important issues in criminal cases. Otherwise, the administration of criminal justice would continue to be in danger and it is not good for society. “Heinous crimes like murders and kidnappings have been increasing in the past 20 to 25 years. Therefore, the time has come to examine the condition by the governments concerned very seriously.”
In the second case related to organised crime, the judge wanted to know why a legislation, prescribing stringent punishment, should not be enacted to curtail the practice of people engaging mercenaries to commit offences such as kidnapping and murder.
