Witness protection is one of the most important yet neglected aspects of criminal justice in India. Reliable, voluntary testimony is essential to any adversarial adjudicatory process. However, there has never been a systematic law in place in India to protect the witnesses from the threats of coercion, intimidation or retributive violence. This paper provides a systematic analysis of how the Indian Supreme Court, through wise constitutional interpretation and innovative judicial activism, has carved out interpretative duties relating to witness protection without exhaustive legislation. The analysis of constitutional provisions and principles, important judicial rulings, the various Law Commission reports and the 2018 Law Reform (Witness Protection Scheme) Report, shows that there are structural weaknesses in the current system. The paper sets out a series of reforms based on both constitutional principles and state-of-the-art practice in other jurisdictions. The argument is that witness protection is not a luxury but a constitutional obligation, arising from Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India, and is necessary for the effective implementation of the right to a fair trial.
Shukla et al. (Sat,) studied this question.