S.K. CHAKRABORTY Vs. KAJAL ROY AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Reticence may be good in many circumstances, but a Judge remaining mute during trial is not an ideal situation. A taciturn Judge may be the model caricatured in public mind. But, there is nothing wrong in his becoming active or dynamic during trial so that criminal justice system being the end could be achieved. Criminal trial should not turn out to, be about or combat between two rival sides with the Judge performing the role only of a spectator or even an umpire to pronounce finally who won the race. A Judge is expected to actively participate in the trial, elicit necessary materials from witnesses in the appropriate context which he feels necessary for reaching the correct conclusion. There is nothing which inhibits his power to put questions to the witnesses, either during chief -examination or cross -examination or even during the re -examination to. elicit truth. The corollary of it is that if a Judge. felt that a witness has committed an error or a slip it is the duty of the Judge to ascertain whether it was so, for. to err is human and the chances of erring may accelerate under stress of nervousness during cross -examination. Criminal justice is not to be founded on erroneous answers spelled -out by witnesses during evidence -collecting process. It is a useful exercise for a trial Judge to remain active and alert so that errors can be minimised."

(2.) Before tracing out the jinxed matrimony of deceased Hena which led to her premature departure from the World of Living, this Court finds that the very sacred concept of justice has been burled in the (sic) of dead technicalities, which perhaps may not have even cut any ice in the mid -Victorian judicial system but today we are reposed with the trust that the Criminal Justice System should be salvaged from the ruins of fallacies and to see that the debris of fallacy and errors do not snap the rive -wire of the very system.

(3.) Here the accused along with his Motha (since deceased) was arrayed in the aforesaid trial & answer the following charge: