AIR 1981 SUPREME COURT 1036 ::1981 CriAppR(SC) 158 ::1981 SCC(Cri) 683 ::1981 (3) SCC 191 ::1981 (2) APLJ 1 ::1981 BBCJ 66 ::(1981) ChandCriC 84 ::(1981) SC Cr R 295 ::(1981) CurLJ(CCR) 84

Supreme Court Of India

(From : Punjab and Haryana)*

Hon'ble Judge(s): O. Chinnappa Reddy, Baharul Islam , JJ

(A) Evidence Act (1 of 1872) , S.137, S.138— Practice - Examination of witnesses - Court's power to ask questions - Scope. Criminal P.C. (2 of 1974) , S.161, S.164— The adversary system of trial being what it is there is an unfortunate tendency for a judge presiding over a trial to assume the role of a referee or an umpire and to allow the trial to develop into a contest between the prosecution and the defence with the inevitable distortions flowing from combative and competitive elements entering the trial procedure. If a Criminal Court is to be an effective instrument in dispensing justice, the presiding judge must cease to be a spectator and a mere recording machine. He must become a participant in the trial by evincing intelligent active interest by putting questions to witnesses in order to ascertain the truth. But this he must do, without unduly trespassing upon the functions of the public prosecutor and the defence counsel. without any hint of partisanship and without appearing to frighten or bully witnesses. Any questions put by the judge must be so as not to frighten coerce, confuse or intimidate the witnesses, In a murder trial the Court put certain questions to the witnesses and finding that they were not sticking to the statements made by them under Ss. 161, 164. Cr. P. C. and were probably giving false evidence, reb....