File on witness protection scheme gathers dust

Kartikeya & Mateen Hafeez | TNN
The role of witnesses and the issue of their protection triggered intense debate after cabbie Shivnarain Pandey gave vital clues in the Gateway blast case and was given extra protection by the Mumbai police. Pandey’s identity was inadvertently leaked to the media by an inspector the day the blasts occurred; this officer allegedly circulated photocopies of a document bearing his name and his vehicle’s registration number and cops took a lot of flak for not realising that Pandey was an important prosecution witness in a very sensitive case.

The police then sent a proposal to the state law and judiciary department for protection of witnesses in terror cases and organised crime and a budget of at least Rs 50 lakh a year for this. However, like many other files, this has remained with the state till date.

In 2003, the Delhi high court issued guidelines to cops on providing protection to witnesses after a petition filed by Neelam Katara, whose son Nitish was kidnapped from a marriage party and then killed. The Law Commission submitted a report in 2007, calling for a statutory programme for guaranteeing anonymity of witnesses and for protection of witnesses in specified cases.

But the SC, in the same year—while terming the concept of witness protection a noble idea—said it was practically impossible to have a blanket order to provide security to every witness.

The Times of India, July 28, 2009