Why Supreme Court ordered removal of SHO from duty, termed stock witnesses ‘anathema’ to country governed by law

The court directed the counsel for the state to file an affidavit to show compliance to the court’s order.

“Learned counsel for the Respondent No.1-State shall file by way of affidavit the order of the Competent Authority by which the present Order has been complied with,” the court ordered.

The court directed the counsel for the state to intimate the order to the concerned authorities without waiting for the order to be formally uploaded.

While the court was examining the conduct of the SHO in the present matter, it noted that in another case before the Madhya Pradesh High Court the same SHO’s conduct was called into question over detention and handcuffing of a person. The high court recorded that the SHO had admitted that no order was obtained from the competent Court of law for handcuffing.

Noting these, the apex court observed, “As such, we are fortified in our view that immediate directions, as passed hereinabove, were required.”

What are stock witnesses?

In legal terms, a stock witness is an individual who speaks in favour of the prosecution on the asking and compulsion of the police in multiple, unrelated cases. These individuals are not “independent” witnesses rather, they are at the “beck and call” of the police and are brought in to fulfil the legal requirement for witnesses.

What did the court say?

The court observed that the SHO had prima facie allowed repeated use of the same witnesses in support of the police versions of alleged crimes.

Terming it as an anathema to a country governed by the rule of law, the court said that the practice goes to the very root of fairness and impartiality of investigation.

What happens next?

The court has clarified that the direction is interim in nature, and the findings are tentative. In the next date of hearing the court shall consider the affidavit filed by the Commissioner of Police, Indore as also the role and responsibility of the concerned ADCP.

The court has listed the matter for further hearing on February 3.

When courts pulled up police for using stock witnesses

Acquitting two men in a murder case, a Delhi court deprecated Delhi Police for producing a “stock witness” during deposition. It observed that “the investigating officer, in the name of conducting and concluding the investigation, apparently arranged for a stock witness and concluded the investigation in a very clandestine manner”.

Stock witness was one of the reasons cited by the court of Additional Sessions Judge, Ludhiana, H S Grewal in December 2014 while acquitting all three accused in the 2007 Shingar Cinema bomb blast case.

In a recent case, the Orissa High Court observed that “Stock witnesses are always at the beck and call of the police and help them in raids and searches. Stock witnesses are put up by the prosecution to speak on facts and circumstances, which they did not witness. They are made to depose whatever the police wanted to be put on record,” reported by Deccan Chronicle.