The committee constituted by the Supreme Court docket to deal with the issues over the usage of ‘inventory witnesses’ held its South Zone Session in Bengaluru on September 5 and 6.
On the valedictory session, Justice Vivek Agarwal (Decide, Madhya Pradesh Excessive Court docket and Chairman of the Inventory Witnesses Reforms Committee) cautioned that technological and administrative reforms alone wouldn’t be sufficient to finish the apply of utilizing inventory witnesses in prison circumstances, and that the nation wanted to confront the deeper query of public morality.
The valedictory session was presided over by DK Shivakumar (Chief Minister of Karnataka), and was addressed by Justice Jayant Banerji (Decide, Karnataka Excessive Court docket). Different individuals current because the Visitors of Honour included Dr Shalini Rajneesh (Chief Secretary, Authorities of Karnataka), Arvind Kamath (Further Solicitor Basic of India, Bengaluru), and Okay Shashi Kiran Shetty (Advocate Basic of Karnataka). Aside from these, Justice Suraj Govindaraj (Decide, Karnataka Excessive Court docket), and Justice Shoba Annamma Eapen (Decide, Kerala Excessive Court docket). Dignitaries current from the Committee embody SD Sanjay (Advocate Basic of Bihar and Member & Coordinator of the Committee), Rajender Kumar Kataria (Further Chief Secretary, Authorities of Karnataka), and S Rajashekar (Advocate and Member of the Committee).
Summing up the important thing takeaways from the 2 days of deliberation, Justice Agarwal mentioned that the central theme of the session was the necessity to encourage pure, unbiased witnesses to come back ahead by easing their look earlier than courts, facilitating e-appearances, and reducing down on the wastage of their time. With this, he emphasised respecting the witnesses, including that the mechanical and repetitive summoning of witnesses should be prevented, and that the method of summoning wanted to be made extra clear.
Justice Agarwal referred to a submission made by Bijay Kumar Singh (ADGP, CID, Karnataka), who had referred to Munshi Premchand’s Panch Parmeshwar to spotlight the issue of inventory witnesses that had existed even a century in the past. “The brand new era is detached in direction of the state. The problem, then, is that discovering out unbiased witnesses will increase manyfold. Thus, the answer, it’s urged, lies in the usage of know-how, however the dilemma will nonetheless be on the usage of witnesses to show technical proof,” he recalled. He additionally referred to the solutions that native residents of Gram Panchayats be compulsorily concerned as witnesses, and that unambiguous digitally captured proof be readily accepted.
He additionally recalled Justice Harinath (Decide, Andhra Pradesh Excessive Court docket) who recognized the separation of regulation and order duties from investigation as one of the crucial essential reforms wanted for clear investigation, alongside together with his solutions on deploying native peace committees to establish inventory witnesses, whereas cautioning to differentiate between “planted witnesses” and “inventory witnesses”.
“Mr Arun Shayam (Senior Advocate and Former Further Advocate Basic of Karnataka) talked of making a nationwide repository of witnesses per police station to beat the issue of inventory witnesses. He additionally urged that the district magistrates ought to nominate witnesses from that repository,” Justice Agarwal recalled the proposal for a witness repository, whereas additionally mentioning that he himself has some reservations with respect to the proposal.
He additionally referred to Justice (Retd.) S Nagamuthu ( Senior Advocate and Member of Inventory Witnesses of Reforms Committee) who spoke of state-level committees of advocates, prosecutors, investigating officers, and defence counsels already functioning in Tamil Nadu recommending that such committees be replicated in different states, together with coaching investigating officers to gather and produce technological proof in a suitable method.
Summarising the deliberations of day 2, Justice Agarwal referred to Nirmal Rani TC (Public Prosecutor, Bengaluru), “who talked about IOs’ duty to rigorously scrutinise the chargesheets and direct investigators to not perform desk investigation however to really journey to the scene of crime to make a real and proper investigation.”
Justice Agarwal supported the view held by Aneesh MD (DGP Kerala) who emphasised the concern of an individual to develop into a witness. “Mr Aneesh MD (DGP Kerala) said that witnesses must be handled as friends of the court docket. I totally assist this proposal as a result of hostility of courts and court docket workers in direction of the witnesses is likely one of the main causes for dissuading the pure witnesses from coming to court docket. it. He additionally talked about creating public consciousness utilizing public platforms and he urged that this could begin with college youngsters. He additionally talked of serving to witnesses to beat concern of the accused and urged that a number of adjournments must be curbed in courts,” Justice Agarwal recalled.
On the roles of prosecutors and investigating officers, Justice Agarwal recalled BN Jagadeesha (State Public Prosecutor I, Karnataka Excessive Court docket), who urged that “it’s the duty of the PP to establish planted witnesses” persevering with this, he recalled submission made by BV Acharya (Senior Advocate and Former Advocate Basic, Bengaluru) that “as soon as the IO has submitted the chargesheet, then work of public prosecutor could be very restricted. He mentioned {that a} inventory witness is one who isn’t true. Shri BV Acharya together with his huge expertise mentioned that avoiding a inventory witness is feasible. All of it is dependent upon the IO and the supervising officer.”
He emphasised the submission of Devajyoti Re (ADGP Karnataka) who pleaded that police shouldn’t be judged on the premise of fee of conviction, somewhat on the premise of the work it has achieved. “That can convey down the strain on the cops to safe false convictions,” he recalled.
Referring to the defence counsels’ periods, Justice Agarwal recalled Justice Muralee Krishna S (Decide, Kerala Excessive Court docket) who had described inventory witnesses, one available to the police, as “a fallout of colonial-era apply”. He urged making obligatory amendments to Part 4 of the Oaths Act, 1969 in order to take appropriate motion towards such witnesses.
Justice Agarwal then recalled Dr Vinit Kumar (Advocate) who mentioned the reliability chain consisting of notion, reminiscence, disclosure identification, corroboration, and submitted that it is extremely tough to search out unbiased witnesses within the system. He additionally recalled Lakshmy Iyengar (Senior Advocate) who had emphasised on use of know-how to facilitate taking of proof.
Justice Agarwal famous that Advocate Thomas J Anakkalunkal(Kerala Excessive Court docket) and Rajavardhan Reddy had deliberated upon the freedom of a person being affected when inventory witnesses are used. Additionally they made some extent {that a} repeated witness isn’t essentially a inventory witness, and urged that each police station ought to keep digital diaries in regard to witnesses.
Calling the submissions of Santosh Nagarally as “essentially the most very important solutions which has come by means of two days’ deliberation”, he recalled the submission as, “he mentioned that introduce an investigation administration system just like the case administration system in courts to facilitate truthful and clear investigation. It’s going to keep away from manipulative investigation.”
Justice Agarwal recalled Senior Advocate Siddarth Dave, who had referred to the Prem Chand Paniwala judgment. “How a paniwala who serves water on a cart was utilized in over thousand circumstances and he mentioned that when he grew to become barely economically nicely off and refused to be a inventory witness then how he was harassed. Thus, he talked about reality have to be revealed by means of authorized means. He said that witnesses shouldn’t be manufactured, know-how be used to find the reality, e-sakshya for use as a device to protect the reality,” Justice Agarwal recalled.
Recalling the judicial officers’ session, Justice Agarwal referred to Suresh Babu VPM (Further DG, Kerala) who “identified {that a} case which is in any other case truthful turns into suspect when inventory witnesses are launched.” He recalled Justice CS Manu (Decide, Kerala Excessive Court docket) who pressed on consciousness amongst all of the stakeholders and roping in state authorized companies and district authorized companies authority to unfold consciousness amongst the general public about their responsibility to be a witness if they’ve witnessed an incident.
Referring to the concluding technical session, Justice Agarwal said that, “there was dialogue on use of e-governance and management mechanisms. One of the crucial revealing discussions was by Mr Pronab Mohanty (IPS DGP CID, Karnataka) who urged a four-phase mechanism consisting of investigation, storage, extraction, use of restricted language non-public restricted language fashions, studying fashions and matching of these fashions in order that the issue of inventory witnesses will be overcome. He additionally urged that use of Aadhaar has its personal limitations within the gentle of the judgment of the Supreme Court docket in Puttaswamy.”
Justice Agarwal then recalled Lakshmi (Police Officer, Andhra Pradesh), who had urged that know-how and knowledge administration methods for witnesses can be utilized in a great distance. She additionally identified that inter-agency accountability must be achieved and urged that nationwide inter-agency traceability will be deployed to trace inventory witnesses along side instruments such because the e-sakshya app and CCTNS.
Concluding the deal with, Justice Agarwal mentioned that, “prominently and loudly is the query of public morality as a result of all applied sciences and all different modes of bringing an finish to the issue of inventory witnesses can’t be solved except we work on the strengthening of public morality in our nation. And therefore, one other essential takeaway of the entire dialogue is enhanced use of know-how and courts to be made extra pleasant and time-driven.” Recalling the discussions and deliberations, he concluded that the session “has proven us the way in which ahead, tips on how to combine know-how, tips on how to make courts extra pleasant, as a result of we have now not been discussing a lot from the angle of the lacunas which exist within the courts system and that additionally wants additional deliberation in future.”
The Inventory Witnesses Reforms Committee was constituted following the orders of the Supreme Court in Anwar Hussain v State of Madhya Pradesh.
