New Delhi: The Government will be unable to provide protection to witnesses in all criminal cases because it is too huge a task, the Supreme Court was told on Monday.
"It’s not feasible to physically provide protection to each witness but we can provide cover to a certain category of witnesses (who are under threat)," said Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium.
The current system of protecting witnesses who made a request is working well, he told a bench headed by headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran
The court noted that protecting witnesses in narcotics cases was important and asked the Centre to respond if it planned to amend the Criminal Procedure Code for this.
The Bench agreed that protecting all witnesses was unfeasible and asked the government to frame a scheme which would make witnesses feel secure.
“Is it possible to implement (providing protection to all witnesses). It is not possible in respect to one single court," the Bench said.
"If you have a proper scheme then the number of hostile witnesses would decrease."
The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by an NGO, which has appealed for a legislation on witness protection.
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