And because of this, we are witnessing a rehash of the confused debates surrounding witness protection schemes in India. We are in August, and it is still unclear whether all states have done so; in all likelihood, they haven’t. These problems have been a part of India’s legal fabric since Independence, with the first witness protection programmes being mooted by the law commission in 1958. This question leads us to an important feature of the legal system, where the law on paper differs materially from the law in practice. On paper, the statements made to police officers are supposed to be disregarded as evidence because our legal system distrusts the police as a source of evidence.

Source: Hindustan Times August 01, 2019 14:26 UTC