Even stranger can seek examination of witness: Punjab and Haryana High Court

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, April 10

In a significant ruling liable to change the way witnesses are summoned and examined, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asserted that a trial court hearing criminal matters is well within its power to entertain a plea for examining a witness even at the instance of “an apparent rank stranger” seeking to intervene unannounced in trial proceedings.

“A criminal trial court may exercise powers under Section 311 of the CrPC not only on a plea by a party to the trial, including accused, the prosecution, complainant and witness or on its own volition but also on a plea of a person who is seemingly rank stranger to the trial,” Justice Sumeet Goel asserted.

The legal provision grants courts the discretion to summon witnesses, examine individuals in court, or recall and re-examine those whose testimony has already been recorded. Sounding a word of caution, Justice Goel asserted a court must “tread more cautiously and carefully” while exercising its powers at the instance of a seemingly stranger or an unconcerned person. Additionally, the power was required to be implemented by the court, if warranted by the facts and circumstances of the case.

Justice Goel asserted: “Whenever the invocation of such power is sought at the instance of a person who is seemingly rank stranger/not a party to the trial, the criminal trial court ought to exercise its powers with a much higher degree of circumspection. It goes without saying that according of cogent and convincing reasons would be a condition precedent to exercise of such power,”

Justice Goel also made it clear that a criminal trial Judge was bound in law to play a participatory role in a trial and could not reduce his role to a mere spectator or recorder of events. The ruling came on a petition filed by a “relatives” challenging the dismissal of a plea by a lower court for re-examining a victim in a rape and a criminal intimidation case registered in August 2020 under the provisions of the IPC and the POCSO Act.

Justice Goel’s Bench, during the course of hearing, was told that both the complainant-mother and the victim were declared hostile by the public prosecutor during the trial proceedings. An application under Section 311, subsequently filed by the victim’s relatives, was rejected by the court below.

Referring to a plethora of judgments and analyzing the law, Justice Goel asserted there was no legal impediment preventing the trial court from exercising its power based on an oral plea. But a more pragmatic approach would be submission of an application.

Taking into consideration the facts of the matter, Justice Goel dismissed the petition. Among other things, the Bench asserted plausible reason was not coming forward as to why the victim or the complainant-mother did not come forward to file an application under Section 311.