The central legal point established in the judgment is the mandatory nature of S.309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which requires the trial court to continue the examination of witnesses from day to day until all witnesses in attendance have been examined, and adjournments should not be granted without examining witnesses in attendance, except for special reasons to be recorded in writing.

1. Leave granted.

2. Witnesses tremble on getting summons from courts, in India, not because they fear examination or cross examination in courts but because of the fear that they might not be examined at all for several days and on all such days they would be nailed to the precincts of the Courts awaiting their chance of being examined. The witnesses, perforce, keep aside their avocation and go to the courts and wait and wait for

hours to be told at the end of the day to come again and wait and wait like that. This is the infelicitous scenario in many of the Courts in India so far as witnesses are concerned. It is high time that trial courts should regard witnesses as guests invited (through summons) for helping such courts with their testimony for reaching judicial findings. But the malady is that the predicament of the witnesses is worse than the litigants themselves. This case demonstrates the agony and ordeal suffered by witnesses who attended a sessions court on several days yet they were not examined in full. The party who succeeded in dodging examination of such witnesses finally enjoyed the benefit when the sessions court acquitted them for want of evidence. The only casualty in the aforesaid process is criminal justice.

3. This appeal by special leave is by the State of U.P. against the order of acquittal of the respondents and also against the order of a Division Bench of the High Court of Allahabad refusing to grant leave to appeal against acquittal. How the situation was reached can be narrated now after referring to the facts of the case summarily.

Nine persons were arraigned before a Sessions Court to face the charges of murder, attempt to murder and rioting etc. Those nine persons are the respondents in this appeal. The Trial Judge included S.302 and 307 read with S.149 of the IPC read with S.149 of the IPC among other offences in the charge framed against the respondents. The allegations, inter alia, are that the respondents formed themselves into an unlawful assembly at about 8 p.m. on 22.6.1982 and armed with deadly weapons including firearms, they caused the murder of one Ram Bachan and serious injuries to some other persons.

4. Prosecution cited Jiyawoo, Paras and Indresh Singh as eyewitnesses and offered to examine them and other witnesses to prove the charge against the respondents. We are told that Jiyawoo was examined as PW-1, but his cross-examination was not completed on the same day. Hence, the trial court adjourned the case to some other day and then to some other day and like that to so many days. According to the learned Counsel for the appellant State, PW-1 Jiyawoo had appeared in Court on 9th and 15th of November, 1994, 8th December 1994, and then on 12th January, 7th February, 24th June, 25th August and 25th September of 1995. In spite of the fact that the witness turned up on those days he was not cross-examined due to one reason or the other for which the witness is not at fault. Copy of the proceeding papers submitted before us showed that one or the other accused was absent on most of those days and the cross-examination of PW-1 could not be undertaken for that reason. The Public Prosecutor in the trial court filed an application on 11.7.1995 for adopting punitive action against the accused for the dilatory tactics and the sessions court posted the case to 25th August, 1995 with a warning to the accused that no further adjournment would be given for cross-examination of PW-1. But the presiding officer happened to be on leave on 25th August, 1995 and hence the case was posted to 25th September, 1995. Though PW-1 was present on that day also he was not examined. Ultimately the case stood posted on 4.1.1996. But on that day PW-1 happened to be absent and an application for adjournment was presented on his behalf. The Trial Judge dismissed the said application and closed the prosecution evidence and pronounced the judgment on 9.1.1996 acquitting the accused for want of evidence.

5. It i