A criminal prosecution should not become a self-validating exercise in which the investigating agency creates the narrative, selects the person who will certify it, records him as an independent witness and then relies upon his evidence as external corroboration. The objection to a “stock witness” is not simply that he has appeared in several cases. It is that repeated police dependence may destroy the very independence for which he is cited.
Fair investigation forms part of Article 21. When liberty is at stake, there is a fundamental difference between evidence discovered during investigation and evidence introduced to strengthen an investigative theory. The concern is acute where the supposed independent witness did not see what he later claims to have seen. He may be asked to sign a mahazar or seizure record, supplied with a version of events and later presented in court as a civilian observer. More seriously, he may identify an accused whom he never saw or support a recovery he never witnessed. If such evidence contributes to conviction, a later acquittal cannot restore the liberty, employment, family life and reputation already lost.
Dudh Nath Pandey v. State of Uttar Pradesh remains important in principle. The Supreme Court noted that a prosecution witness connected with the alleged recovery of a pistol had appeared in several cases for the police and was evidently at their beck and call. The deeper question is one of selection: why was that particular person chosen? A genuinely independent witness ordinarily becomes a witness because an event occurs in his presence. A stock witness reverses the sequence, the person is already available to the police and is then brought into the event.
That is the distinction between verification and validation. Verification begins with an independent person who observes what occurred. Validation begins with an official narrative and seeks a civilian signature or voice to make it appear independent. This does not mean that every repeat witness is dishonest. Members of the public often refuse to assist because of repeated court attendance, loss of wages, travel, fear and prolonged trials. Searches and raids may also occur at short notice. A familiar person who is available and can later be traced is naturally convenient. The difficulty begins when convenience becomes a substitute for independence, or when a witness is chosen because his future support is predictable.
The Supreme Court's ongoing proceedings in Anwar Hussain v. State of Madhya Pradesh have brought the issue into sharp focus. The Court expressed concern over the casual manner in which persons may be cited in FIRs and later carried into charge-sheets although they may not have been genuinely present, and initiated a national exercise towards a common minimum procedure for authentic witness introduction. The Stock Witnesses Reforms Committee has similarly stressed that repetition alone is not conclusive; frequency, pattern and explanation matter.
Why Preventive Offences Require Greater Care
The danger is particularly pronounced where criminality is alleged before the substantive offence occurs. Sections 399 and 402 IPC illustrate the point. In a completed murder, robbery or theft there is ordinarily an external event demanding explanation. In a prosecution for preparation or assembly for dacoity, the contemplated offence never occurs. Legitimate preventive policing seeks precisely that result, but the absence of a completed offence also means that criminal purpose may depend largely upon what the raiding party says it observed before intervention.
The familiar narrative is that secret information was received; a police party reached a secluded place; several persons were found assembled; officers overheard discussion of a proposed dacoity; the group was intercepted; and weapons or ordinary articles were seized. Such an account may be true. Yet it is difficult for an accused to disprove. The informer ordinarily does not testify, the intended victim may know nothing of the alleged plan, and the alleged conversation is often heard only by police officers.
This is why courts insist upon proof of the specific preparation and purpose required by the offence. In Arvindsingh Gangasingh Solanki v. State of Gujarat, the Gujarat High Court set aside convictions under Section 399 after finding serious deficiencies in the recording and verification of prior information and the conduct of the raid. The decision illustrates the need for objective material capable of testing the police narrative rather than formulaic assertions of preparation. In such cases, one civilian witness can materially alter the appearance of the prosecution. If police officers alone speak to an assembly, an alleged conversation and recovery, the defence can ask what objectively establishes the intended crime. Add a civilian who says he accompanied the raid and witnessed the recovery, and the case is immediately presented as independently corroborated. A stock witness can therefore give a police-generated preventive narrative the appearance of external authentication.
Antecedents create a further risk. Police are entitled to maintain intelligence concerning persons previously involved in serious crime. But prior involvement cannot become an evidentiary shortcut. Antecedents may justify lawful vigilance; they cannot substitute for proof of the mens rea required for a fresh offence.
The Cost of a False Appearance of Independence
It is not enough to say that the trial court can disbelieve an unreliable witness. Criminal process itself is coercive. Arrest, remand, bail conditions, litigation expense, stigma and years of uncertainty may precede the final assessment of credibility. Where the witness has falsely identified the accused or supported a recovery which never occurred in his presence, the prejudice is not merely technical. Nor is the answer to genuine witnesses turning hostile to replace them with persons whose loyalty is more predictable. In Mahender Chawla v. Union of India, the Supreme Court approved the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018. Protection, logistical assistance, timely testimony and realistic scheduling address the real reasons why genuine witnesses withdraw; a dependable class of police-friendly civilians does not.
Procedural Reform: Replacing Familiarity with Verifiable Safeguards
The governing principle should be simple: where independent authentication is sought, reliability should arise from the procedure by which the witness is selected and his presence preserved, not from the investigating officer's familiarity with him.
Section 105 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita is an important starting point. It mandates audio-video recording of search and seizure, including preparation and signing of seizure lists, with the recording to be forwarded without delay to the appropriate Magistrate. Proper implementation can reduce the evidentiary premium placed on a familiar panch. So far as practicable, the recording should show the identity and arrival of civilian witnesses, the location, material stages of search and recovery, and preparation of the contemporaneous record. Selection should also become more transparent. States may consider neutral witness pools, rotation or randomised digital selection where circumstances permit. A rigid rule that no person may ever act twice would be unrealistic; disclosure is preferable to prohibition. The record should disclose whether a purported independent witness has previously acted for the police, the extent of such use if known, and why he was selected.
Where local persons refuse to participate, the investigating officer should briefly record the efforts made and the reason for selecting a repeat or non-local witness. A verifiable State-level register could make patterns visible without automatically invalidating genuine evidence. Prosecutors should also be informed where an important witness has repeatedly appeared for the same police station. Reform must reduce the burden on ordinary citizens. Travel and wage compensation, digital notice, efficient examination and witness protection can make genuine participation less punitive.
Deliberate fabrication must, however, be distinguished from mere repetition. An officer who uses a repeat witness because no one else will assist is not in the same position as one who knowingly records a person as present when he was absent. The latter is the creation of false evidence by an agency wielding coercive power and must attract meaningful departmental, judicial and, where warranted, criminal consequences.
The Anwar Hussain exercise is therefore an opportunity to create a workable national framework: repetition should be visible, selection explainable and presence verifiable. Such reform is not anti-police. A genuinely recorded search, supported by a transparently selected witness, protects honest officers from false allegations of planting just as it protects accused persons from fabricated recoveries. The ultimate question is simple: if the supposed independent witness is removed, what remains? If there is a coherent body of objective evidence, his role may be merely corroborative. If what remains is only a police narrative echoed through a civilian repeatedly supplied by the same station, the concern is constitutional.
Independence is a function, not a costume. Where life and liberty are involved, the system must prefer the inconvenience of obtaining authentic evidence to the administrative comfort of predictable testimony. Liberty wrongly taken cannot later be credited back. Fair investigation must therefore operate before trial, preventing the manufacture of apparent independence rather than merely condemning it after the damage is irreversible.
Author is an Advocate based in Bengaluru. Views are personal.