Addressing Witness Intimidation And Hostility In India's Criminal Justice System: An Analysis Of The Witness Protection Scheme, 2018
- IJLLR Journal
- 18 hours ago
- 2 min read
Dr. Rashmi Rekha Baug
ABSTRACT
Witness testimony remains central to criminal adjudication, yet witnesses in India have historically participated in criminal proceedings without a comprehensive institutional guarantee of safety. This has contributed to intimidation, coercion, and hostile testimony, weakening the truth-finding function of criminal courts and undermining public confidence in justice. The Witness Protection Scheme, 2018 marks India’s first nationally applicable framework for addressing witness vulnerability. Its emergence must be understood within the broader evolution of Indian criminal justice, including Law Commission Reports, judicial interventions, and reform initiatives that repeatedly recognised the problem of witness intimidation but failed to produce a unified protection regime.
Hostile testimony should not be understood merely as an evidentiary defect or as a question of witness credibility. In many cases, it reflects the inability of the legal system to protect witnesses from fear, retaliation, and social or economic pressure before trial. The Witness Protection Scheme, 2018 is therefore both a significant institutional advance and an incomplete response. It introduces threat categorisation, judicial oversight, Threat Analysis Reports, identity protection, relocation, courtroom safeguards, and a Witness Protection Fund. However, its effectiveness remains constrained by its executive origins, dependence on police-generated threat assessments, uneven state-level implementation, limited awareness, dependence on adequate state-level funding, inadequate long-term support, and insufficient attention to digital forms of intimidation. The paper concludes that witness protection is not a peripheral welfare measure but a structural requirement of fair trial and effective criminal adjudication. Strengthening the existing framework through statutory clarity, greater institutional independence, assured funding, post-trial support, and safeguards against digital threats is essential to ensuring both witness security and the integrity of the criminal process.
Keywords: Witness Protection Scheme, 2018; Hostile Witnesses; Witness Intimidation; Fair Trial; Criminal Justice; Law Commission of India.
