'Witnesses Must Be Treated As Courts' Guests' : Supreme Court Committee Holds Conference On 'Stock Witnesses' Reforms

The committee constituted by the Supreme Court to address the concerns over the use of 'stock witnesses' held its South Zone Consultation in Bengaluru on September 5 and 6.

At the valedictory session, Justice Vivek Agarwal (Judge, Madhya Pradesh High Court and Chairman of the Stock Witnesses Reforms Committee) cautioned that technological and administrative reforms alone would not be enough to end the practice of using stock witnesses in criminal cases, and that the country needed to confront the deeper question of public morality.

The valedictory session was presided over by DK Shivakumar (Chief Minister of Karnataka), and was addressed by Justice Jayant Banerji (Judge, Karnataka High Court). Other people present as the Guests of Honour included Dr Shalini Rajneesh (Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka), Arvind Kamath (Additional Solicitor General of India, Bengaluru), and  K Shashi Kiran Shetty (Advocate General of Karnataka). Apart from these, Justice Suraj Govindaraj (Judge, Karnataka High Court), and Justice Shoba Annamma Eapen (Judge, Kerala High Court). Dignitaries present from the Committee include SD Sanjay (Advocate General of Bihar and Member & Coordinator of the Committee), Rajender Kumar Kataria (Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka), and S Rajashekar (Advocate and Member of the Committee).

Summing up the key takeaways from the two days of deliberation, Justice Agarwal said that the central theme of the session was the need to encourage natural, independent witnesses to come forward by easing their appearance before courts, facilitating e-appearances, and cutting down on the wastage of their time. With this, he emphasised respecting the witnesses, adding that the mechanical and repetitive summoning of witnesses ought to be avoided, and that the process of summoning needed to be made more transparent.

Justice Agarwal referred to a submission made by Bijay Kumar Singh (ADGP, CID, Karnataka), who had referred to Munshi Premchand's Panch Parmeshwar to highlight the problem of stock witnesses that had existed even a century ago. “The new generation is indifferent towards the state. The challenge, then, is that finding out independent witnesses increases manyfold. Thus, the solution, it is suggested, lies in the use of technology, but the dilemma will still be on the use of witnesses to prove technical evidence,” he recalled. He also referred to the suggestions that local residents of Gram Panchayats be compulsorily involved as witnesses, and that unambiguous digitally captured evidence be readily accepted.

He also recalled Justice Harinath (Judge, Andhra Pradesh High Court) who identified the separation of law and order duties from investigation as one of the most important reforms needed for transparent investigation, along with his suggestions on deploying local peace committees to identify stock witnesses, while cautioning to distinguish between “planted witnesses” and “stock witnesses”.

“Mr Arun Shayam (Senior Advocate and Former Additional Advocate General of Karnataka) talked of creating a national repository of witnesses per police station to overcome the problem of stock witnesses. He also suggested that the district magistrates should nominate witnesses from that repository,” Justice Agarwal recalled the proposal for a witness repository, while also mentioning that he himself has some reservations with respect to the proposal.

He also referred to Justice (Retd.) S Nagamuthu ( Senior Advocate and Member of Stock 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 other states, along with training investigating officers to collect and produce technological evidence in an acceptable manner.

Summarising the deliberations of day 2, Justice Agarwal referred to Nirmal Rani TC (Public Prosecutor, Bengaluru), “who talked about IOs' responsibility to carefully scrutinise the chargesheets and direct investigators to not carry out table investigation but to actually travel to the scene of crime to make a true and correct investigation.”

Justice Agarwal supported the view held by Aneesh MD (DGP Kerala) who emphasised the fear of a person to become a witness. “Mr Aneesh MD (DGP Kerala) stated that witnesses should be treated as guests of the court. I fully support this proposal because hostility of courts and court staff towards the witnesses is one of the major reasons for dissuading the natural witnesses from coming to court. it. He also talked about creating public awareness using public platforms and he suggested that this should start with school children. He also talked of helping witnesses to overcome fear of the accused and suggested that multiple adjournments should 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 High Court), who suggested that “it is the responsibility of the PP to identify planted witnesses” continuing this, he recalled submission made by BV Acharya (Senior Advocate and Former Advocate General, Bengaluru) that “once the IO has submitted the chargesheet, then work of public prosecutor is very limited. He said that a stock witness is one who is not true. Shri BV Acharya with his vast experience said that avoiding a stock witness is possible. It all depends on the IO and the supervising officer.”

He emphasised the submission of Devajyoti Re (ADGP Karnataka) who pleaded that police should not be judged on the basis of rate of conviction, rather on the basis of the work it has done. “That will bring down the pressure on the police officers to secure false convictions,” he recalled.

Referring to the defence counsels' sessions, Justice Agarwal recalled Justice Muralee Krishna S (Judge, Kerala High Court) who had described stock witnesses, one readily available to the police, as “a fallout of colonial-era practice”. He suggested making necessary amendments to Section 4 of the Oaths Act, 1969 so as to take suitable action against such witnesses.

Justice Agarwal then recalled Dr Vinit Kumar (Advocate) who discussed the reliability chain consisting of perception, memory, disclosure identification, corroboration, and submitted that it is very difficult to find independent witnesses in the system. He also recalled Lakshmy Iyengar (Senior Advocate) who had emphasized on use of technology to facilitate taking of evidence.

Justice Agarwal noted that  Advocate Thomas J Anakkalunkal(Kerala High Court) and Rajavardhan Reddy had deliberated upon the liberty of an individual being affected when stock witnesses are used. They also made a point that a repeated witness is not necessarily a stock witness, and suggested that every police station should maintain digital diaries in regard to witnesses.

Calling the submissions of Santosh Nagarally as “the most vital suggestions which has come through two days' deliberation”, he recalled the submission as, “he said that introduce an investigation management system like the case management system in courts to facilitate fair and transparent investigation. It will avoid 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 used in over thousand cases and he said that when he became slightly economically well off and refused to be a stock witness then how he was harassed. Thus, he talked about truth must be revealed through legal means. He stated that witnesses should not be manufactured, technology be used to discover the truth, e-sakshya to be used as a tool to preserve the truth,” Justice Agarwal recalled.

Recalling the judicial officers' session, Justice Agarwal referred to Suresh Babu VPM (Additional DG, Kerala) who “pointed out that a case which is otherwise truthful becomes suspect when stock witnesses are introduced.” He recalled Justice CS Manu (Judge, Kerala High Court) who pressed on awareness amongst all the stakeholders and roping in state legal services and district legal services authority to spread awareness amongst the public about their duty to be a witness if they have witnessed an incident.

Referring to the concluding technical session, Justice Agarwal stated that, “there was discussion on use of e-governance and control mechanisms. One of the most revealing discussions was by Mr Pronab Mohanty (IPS DGP CID, Karnataka) who suggested a four-phase mechanism consisting of investigation, storage, extraction, use of limited language private limited language models, learning models and matching of those models so that the problem of stock witnesses can be overcome. He also suggested that use of Aadhaar has its own limitations in the light of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Puttaswamy.”

Justice Agarwal then recalled Lakshmi (Police Officer, Andhra Pradesh), who had suggested that technology and information management systems for witnesses can be used in a long way. She also pointed out that inter-agency accountability should be achieved and suggested that national inter-agency traceability can be deployed to track stock witnesses in conjunction with tools such as the e-sakshya app and CCTNS.

Concluding the address, Justice Agarwal said that, “prominently and loudly is the question of public morality because all technologies and all other modes of bringing an end to the problem of stock witnesses cannot be solved unless we work on the strengthening of public morality in our country. And hence, another important takeaway of the whole discussion is enhanced use of technology and courts to be made more friendly and time-driven.” Recalling the discussions and deliberations, he concluded that the session “has shown us the way forward, how to integrate technology, how to make courts more friendly, because we have not been discussing much from the perspective of the lacunas which exist in the courts system and that also needs further deliberation in future.”

The Stock Witnesses Reforms Committee was constituted following the orders of the Supreme Court in Anwar Hussain v State of Madhya Pradesh.