Introduction Of the many ills that plague the criminal justice system in India today, the most overwhelming and important one is the fact that prosecution witnesses retract from the statements made earlier before the police and turn hostile in the Court. What is shocking is that witnesses are turning hostile with predictable regularity in cases involving heinous crimes or high-profile personalities due to external pressures thereby leading to the failure of the Criminal Justice system. The brazen subversion of justice in the Best Bakery trial has shown that otherwise fearless ‘upright’ witnesses, already traumatized by events, are vulnerable to external pressures by the rich and powerful accused.1 However, this is not the first time that the criminal justice system has failed to deliver. It is routine in India for powerful people accused for heinous crimes to be acquitted for lack of evidence, l ....