STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. RAJANIRANJAN @ RAAJ RAMESH MAHAPATRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Rule. Respondent waives service.

(2.) This matter was specifically fixed on the top of the board. The Revision Application raises the material questions of law as regards power of the Court in declaring the prosecution witness hostile as is known in the legal parlance. The petitioner had put in the witness box one Jayesh kumar Ramanlal Kapadiya, Executive Magistrate as PW: 5 Exh: 35 for the purpose of establishing the identity of the accused in the proceedings conducted by him for the purpose. On the conclusion of examination in chief of the witness, the witness failed to identify one of the accused in the open Court. On this sole ground, even without any application form the public prosecutor, the learned Trial Judge, without citing the source of power and as if the learned Judge possessed inherent powers, proceeded to declare the witness hostile and thereby, embarrassing situation was created for the prosecution to put the questions to the witness, as are otherwise permissible in the cross examination of the witness, as contemplated in Section 154 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (for short "the Act"), though the prosecution wanted to rely upon the witness. The question therefore is whether the said course of action adopted by the learned Trial Judge was legal and valid or did it suffer from a total non-application of mind.

(3.) While the learned counsel for the respondent is unable to contend that Section 154 of the Evidence Act confers inherent powers upon the Court to declare witness as 'hostile', the learned APP invited the attention of this Court to Section 154 of the Act which reads as under: