Name: Ajai Veer & Pooja Chaudhary
Country: India

Year: 2025
Volume: Volume-10, Issue-2 (July-December)
Page Number: 120-131
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17961819

ABSTRACT
The current study explores the legal and ethical issues surrounding witness protection in India by examining how current practices correspond to the constitutional values, human rights standards, and the legitimate needs of the vulnerable witnesses. The objective is to analyze the present protection measures in terms of their benefits and disadvantages and identify the reforms necessary for the betterment of the justice delivery system. In India, the protective measures are of extreme import, as
the prevailing conditions of threats, non-cooperative witnesses, political influence, and underworld gangs conducting their operations often undermine the trust in the evidence and the judicial process through trials. Besides, the absence of a national law uniform in nature and the incompatible witness protection scheme (2018), breach of confidentiality, accountability of police, and the state moral responsibility to offer protection and respect to those who assist the justice system are among the
principal legal and ethical quandaries that are being debated in the study. The research applies qualitative methodology and partly depends on secondary data like court decisions, policy documents, academic writings, international instances, etc., and identifies the major findings of lack of infrastructure, financial resources restricted to minimal necessity, absence of proper training, and poor inter-institutional cooperation. Moreover, the results point out that witnesses have to face and such
social and psychological factors are there, which discourage witnesses from coming forward and cooperating. In short, the paper suggests that India needs to come up with all-encompassing witness protection law, to fortify the institutional framework, to set up special units for the protection of witnesses, and to incorporate the ethically rooted practices for the purpose of providing a consistent and efficient security cover for witnesses. Not only the improved witness protection will lead to higher conviction rates, but also it will help in restoring the public's trust and fostering a more account.

Keywords: crime against humanity, adversary system, or jurisprudence, bail, martyrdom, prejudice,human trafficking, appellant, convict, indenture, court order.