Delhi to frame witness protection policy

The Delhi government on Thursday decided to formulate a comprehensive policy for protecting witnesses, an official said.

"The policy envisages categorisation of witnesses, creation of witness protection fund, procedure for processing such requests by the competent authority and the types of protection," the government said in a statement.

The Delhi High Court in 2013 had directed the state government to frame a witness protection policy to provide guidelines and principles which police, prosecution and executive agencies have to follow for protection of witness.

The statement said pursuant to the court order, home department had constituted a sub-committee comprising officers from law department, home department, directorate of prosecution and Delhi Police.

After much deliberation, it was decided to have a comprehensive policy for protecting the witnesses and the Delhi Witness Protection Scheme, 2015 was drawn.

The Aam Aadmi Party government also claimed that Delhi would be the first state to have such a comprehensive policy.

"Delhi is the first state to notify witness protection policy today," Home Minister Satyendra Jain said in a tweet.