The High Court has directed the government to take necessary steps to formulate a law for the security of the witnesses of criminal cases.
While hearing a bail petition by a murder accused, the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Amir Hossain gave the order yesterday.
They said it should be done in order to ensure that witnesses appeared before courts without fear and criminal cases could be disposed off quickly.
The bench asked the secretaries to the home and law ministries to include necessary rules in the relevant law so that public prosecutors and police remain accountable for absence of witnesses.
The order came after Asaduzzaman Rochi, additional public prosecutor of the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court, was summoned over the matter. He told the HC that witnesses did not appear before the court for security concerns.
Police arrested a murder case accused named Hira alias Harun on July 10, 2000. The metropolitan sessions judge framed charges against him two years later, but nobody came to give deposition against him on the ten dates that the court had fixed for recording witness accounts.
The accused moved the High Court seeking bail. The court denied him bail and summoned Asaduzzaman Rochi to explain why the witnesses did not appear.
The lawyer conducted an inquiry and yesterday, appearing before the High Court bench, said that the witnesses were scared of coming to the trial court because accused Harun was an influential person and threatened them.
Harun then moved to the HC praying for bail on the ground that there was no witnesses against him.
Deputy Attorney General AKM Moniruzzaman Kobir said that hearing the Additional Public Prosecutor’s explanation, the court came up with the order.