STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH Vs. SHAMBHU NATH SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) Witnesses tremble on getting summons from Courts, in India, not because they fear examination or cross-examination in Courts but because of the fear that they might not be examined at all for several days and on all such days they would be nailed to the precincts of the Courts awaiting their chance of being examined. The witnesses, perforce, keep aside their avocation and go to the Courts and wait and wait for hours to be told at the end of the day to come again and wait and wait like that. This is the infelicitous scenario in many of the Courts in India so far as witnesses are concerned. It is high time that trial Courts should regard witnesses as guests invited (through summons) for helping such Courts with their testimony for reaching judicial findings. But the malady is that the predicament of the witnesses is worse than the litigants themselves. This case demonstrates the agony and ordeal suffered by witnesses who attended a Sessions Court on several days and yet they were not examined in full. The party who succeeded in dodging examination of such witnesses finally enjoyed the benefit when the Sessions Court acquitted them for want of evidence. The only casualty in the aforesaid process is criminal justice.

(3.) This appeal by special leave is by the State of U. P. against the order of acquittal of the respondents and also against the order of a Division Bench of the High Court of Allahabad refusing to grant leave to appeal against acquittal. How the situation reached can be narrated now after referring to the facts of the case summarily.