INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - March 1st - March 15th - 2008
SUPREME COURT SHIFTS SABHARWAL MURDER CASE TO NAGPUR
The Supreme Court has transferred the trial of the Prof H S Sabharwal murder case, allegedly involving ABVP leaders, from BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh to Nagpur in Maharashtra.
In a verdict reminiscent of the Best Bakery case, when a riot case was moved from BJPruled Gujarat to Mumbai, the apex court also said that it was high time the criminal procedure code was amended to protect witnesses as their reluctance to depose against people wielding political power has become the order of the day.
A bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice P Sathasivam said, "Legislative measures to emphasise prohibition against tampering with witness, victim or informant have become the imminent and inevitable need of the day."
"Time has come when serious and undiluted thoughts are to be bestowed for protecting witnesses so that ultimate truth is presented before the court and justice triumphs and the trial is not reduced to mockery. The State has a definite role to play in protecting the witnesses, to start with at least in sensitive cases involving those in power, who has political patronage and could wield muscle and money power, to avert trial getting tainted and derailed and truth becoming a casualty," the court said.
Justice Pasayat writing the verdict for the bench said, "The reluctance and the hesitation of witnesses to depose against people with muscle power, money power or political power has become the order of the day. If ultimately truth is to be arrived at, the eyes and ears of justice have to be protected so that the interests of justice do not get incapacitated in the sense of making the proceedings before courts mere mock trials as are usually seen in movies."
The bench further said "Time has become ripe to act on account of numerous experiences faced by courts on account of frequent turning of witnesses as hostile, either due to threats, coercion, lures and monetary considerations at the instance of those in power, their henchmen and hirelings, political clouts and patronage and innumerable other corrupt practices ingenuously adopted to smoother and stifle truth and realities coming out to surface rendering truth and justice, to become ultimate casualties."
It said, broader public and societal interests require that the victims of the crime who are not ordinarily parties to prosecution and the interests of State represented by their prosecuting agencies do not suffer even in slow process but irreversibly and irretrievably, which if allowed would undermine and destroy public confidence in the administration of justice, which may ultimately pave way for anarchy, oppression and injustice resulting in complete breakdown and collapse of the edifice of rule of law, enshrined and jealously guarded and protected by the constitution. There comes the need for protecting the witness.
The court said that witness protection is essence of the fair trail. Fair trial means a trial in which bias or prejudice for or against the accused, the witnesses, or the cause which is being tried is eliminated. If the witnesses get threatened or are forced to give false evidence that also would not result in a fair trial. The failure to hear material witnesses is certainly denial of fair trial.
The court delivered the ruling on a petition filed by the son of deceased Prof Sabharwal alleging that fair trail was not possible within the state due to threat of witnesses in the case. In the Ujjain sessions court where trail had commenced, during examination of several witnesses who were stated to be eye-witnesses, such witnesses resiled from the statements made during investigation. There were even three police witnesses who also resiled from their earlier statements.
The apex court ordered the case to be transferred to the sessions court, Nagpur which will appoint a public prosecutor to ensure its fair trail.
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