HC quashes recall of all witnesses in criminal case

The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court today set aside an order of a Mahila court here recalling all 36 witnesses in an attempt to murder case for re-examination.
Allowing a petition by the accused, Martin Manrique Mansour, Justice P.N.Prakash said the trial court should not permit witch-hunting of the accused by the prosecution. The accused also has a fundamemtal right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, he said.
The mahila court had allowed the application of the Special Public Prosecutor seeking the recall of all the witnesses subsequent to his appointment to conduct the case. Earlier, the high court had appointed G Anbu Saravanan as the SPP after a petition was filed for such a relief by the de facto complainant in the case after several witnesses turned hostile during the trial.

The SPP's application for recalling all witnesses was allowed by the trial court despite strong objections by the accused.
In his order, Judge Prakash agreed with the petitioner that on the mere asking of the newly-appointed SPP, the trial court had allowed the appliation to recall all the witnesses and said it would cause undue prejudice to the case of accused.
He rejected the contention of the SPP that the witnesses were not properly examined by the erstwhile PP.
The Judge, however, gave liberty to the SPP to thoroughly analyse the depositions of the witnesses already examined and file a fresh application giving reasons as to how further examination was essential to decide the case.