Proper recording of witness statements and the conduct of counsel in court proceedings.

The petitioner, by means of this petition, had prayed for the grant of various relief’s and had specifically prayed that the order under challenged is illegal and not in accordance with law.

2. I had heard the matter on 4th January, 2016 and I was not in agreement with the learned counsel for the petitioner and according to me the order was a very legitimate and proper order. No party can try to overreach the Court by almost threatening that either its request be accepted or the Judge rescue from the case.

3. On going through the records I find that the main dispute was with regard to the recording the cross-examination of a witness. In cross-examination the witness stated that he did not personally know the defendant. Thereafter, a suggestion was put to him that he had stated a lie in the affidavit wherein it was mentioned that he knew the parties. The answer of the witness was that since the name of the defendant who is the Editor of a well known Paper is printed in the newspaper he had stated that he knows the defendant but not that he personally knew the defendant.

4. The learned trial Court has recorded the statement as follows:

“I have no personal identification or relation with defendant and I do not know him personally. I know the defendant and I stated the same in my examination in chief because I read his name and I came to know about him from the news paper.”

The way in which the answer has been recorded, in my opinion is the only proper way of recording the answer.

5. The submission made by the petitioner is that first the suggestion should have been either answered in Yes or No and then the further clarification of the witness could have been recorded. In the first part of the cross-examination the witness has very clearly stated that he has no personal identification or relation with the defendant and he does not know him personally. In my opinion that itself was a complete answer in itself.

6. His second answer is that in his affidavit he stated that he knew the defendant because he read his name in the newspaper. The explanation will have to be part of the answer. It cannot be separately recorded. The sum and substance of the cross-examination has been recorded properly and I am constrained to observe that the behavior of the counsel was also not proper inasmuch as he virtually threatened the Judge that either the Judge should record the cross-examination as suggested by the counsel or the Court should transfer the case to this Court.

7. I fail to understand how the learned counsel could have raised such an objection. The answers have been properly recorded. Since the counsel was aggrieved by the manner in which the statement of the witness was recorded he made a request to the Court and thereafter, the learned Judge passed the impugned order, relevant portion of which reads as follows:

“While examining PW.2 Sri Nantu Ch. Das the first question asked by Ld. Counsel mr. Bhattacharjee is that whether he has personal knowledge or relation with defendant Sri Anal Roy Chowdhury and the witness answered that he has no personal knowledge or relation with defendant and he does not know him and accordingly the same is recorded.

The next question asked is that in examination in chief filed by way of affidavit in para-1 the witness Nantu Ch. Das stated that he knows the defendant and the same is false as he has no personal knowledge about him but the witness answered that he know the defendant and he stated the same in his examination in chief because he read the name of the defendant and came to know about the defendant from the newspaper and the same is accordingly recorded.

At that point Ld. Counsel Mr. Bhattacharjee submitted that the Court cannot record the answer given in the way the same is recorded but the same is to be recorded like that “my statement made in examination in chief as to the fact that I know the defendant is not true”. But this Court is of the view that the manner of recording the statement as state