The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre, all states and Union territories to “enforce” by the end of 2019 a “witness protection scheme” evolved by the Union home ministry.

The scheme will be treated as law of the land until Parliament and respective Assemblies pass a suitable law to provide protection to witnesses who are under constant intimidation, particularly in criminal cases involving influential persons.

The 2018 witness protection scheme, formulated by the Centre in consultation with 18 states and Union territories following an earlier directive, proposes protective umbrellas ranging from police escort to the witness up to the courtroom to the application of communication technology for recording of testimony, instead of asking the witness to depose in the open court.

The scheme envisages provision for in-camera proceedings, a ban on the media on making public the identity of the witnesses and the creation of a special witness protection cell in each state and Union territory.

In more complex cases involving organised criminal groups, extraordinary measures to ensure the witness’s safety, such as offering temporary residence in a safe house, giving a new identity and relocation of the witness at an undisclosed place.

However, witness protection rules will be applied on a case-to-case basis, depending upon the vulnerability and threat perception, the apex court said while approving the draft rules evolved by the Union home ministry.

A bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Abdul Nazeer passed the directive while dealing with a petition filed by four petitioners who are witnesses or related to witnesses in separate cases of rape, murder and intimidation tied to the alleged henchmen of jailed self-styled godman Asaram Bapu. Asaram has been sentenced to jail for life in a rape case.

The petitioners have moved the top court though Utsav Singh Bains and others, alleging a threat to their lives from the goons allegedly engaged by Asaram even while being in jail.

The court said: “The Union of India as well as states and Union territories shall enforce the witness protection Scheme, 2018, in letter and spirit. It shall be the ‘law’ under Article 141/142 (extraordinary powers of Supreme Court) of the Constitution, till the enactment of suitable parliamentary and/or state legislations on the subject… in line with the aforesaid provisions contained in the scheme.

“In all the district courts in India, witness deposition complexes shall be set up by the states and Union territories. This should be achieved within a period of one year, i.e., by the end of the year 2019. The central government should also support this endeavour of the states/Union territories by helping them financially and otherwise,” Justice Sikri said.

The apex court said the identity of witness should be concealed. Publication or revealing, in any manner, directly or indirectly, of the name, address and other particulars which may lead to the identification of the witness during investigation, trial and post-trial stage, should be prohibited, the court said.

The court noted that one of the main reasons for witnesses to turn hostile is that they are not accorded appropriate protection by the State.

“It is a harsh reality, particularly in those cases where the accused persons/ criminals are tried for heinous offences, or where the accused persons are influential persons or in a dominating position that they make attempts to terrorise or intimidate the witnesses because of which these witnesses either avoid coming to courts or refrain from deposing truthfully,” the court said.

The four petitioners are a witness to a child rape and atrocity, the father of a murdered witness, the father of a child rape victim and a journalist who escaped a murder attempt by the goons.

The US, the UK, China, Italy, Canada, Hong Kong and Ireland have witness protection schemes.

Additional reporting by PTI