In a Court of Law, matters are decided based on evidence. This includes witness testimonies and circumstantial evidence which prove the version of parties, be it civil or criminal cases. Witnesses are humans, whose statements need to be corroborated. So, what happens when a person goes back from their statement as a witness? That’s called a hostile witness. But how do Courts take such witnesses while deciding matters? The hostile witness judgments of Supreme Court pave the way for such queries. Let us find out through various decisions of the Apex Court.
Hostile Witness Judgments Supreme Court
Here are some landmark case laws decided by Supreme Court where importance and technicalities related to hostile witness were discussed.
State of UP v. Ramesh Prasad Misra (1996)
This is one of the landmark judgments on hostile witness. The Apex Court in this case reiterated the settled law that evidence of hostile witness would not be rejected in totality if spoken in favour of the prosecution or even accused. However, the Court recommended such evidence to be subjected to close scrutiny. This way, part of evidence consistent with the case, whether of prosecution or defense, may be accepted.
Khujji v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1991)
The Apex Court followed the landmark judgments on hostile witness in Bhagwan Singh v. State of Haryana (1976), Rabinder Kumar Dey v. State of Orissa (1976) and Syed lqbal v. State of Karnataka (1980). The Supreme Court held that “The evidence of a prosecution witness cannot be rejected in toto merely because the prosecution chose to treat him as hostile and cross-examined him. The evidence of such witnesses cannot be treated as effaced or washed off the record altogether, but the same can be accepted to the extent their version is found to be dependable on a careful scrutiny thereof.”
Landmark Judgments on Hostile Witness Reasons
Mahender Chawla v. Union of India (2018)
In this case, the Supreme Court discussed in detail the major reasons due to which witnesses turn hostile. The Court regarded lack of State protection as one of the main reasons for hostile witness. It went on to explain that “It hardly needs to be emphasised that one of the main reasons for witnesses to turn hostile is that they are not accorded appropriate protection by the State. It is a harsh reality, particularly, in those cases where the accused persons/criminals are tried for heinous offences, or where the accused persons are influential persons or in a dominating position that they make attempts to terrorize or intimidate the witnesses because of which these witnesses either avoid coming to courts or refrain from deposing truthfully. This unfortunate situation prevails because of the reason that the State has not undertaken any protective measure to ensure the safety of these witnesses, commonly known as ‘witness protection’.”
Ramesh v. State of Haryana (2016)
This particular hostile witness judgment by Supreme Court analysed and laid down the major reasons discerned which make witnesses retracting their statements before Court and turning hostile were:
- Threat/intimidation
- Inducement by various means
- Use of muscle and money power by the accused
- Use of Stock Witnesses
- Protracted Trials
- Hassles faced by the witnesses during investigation and trial
- Non-existence of any clear-cut legislation to check hostility of witness.
