Observing that the process of cross examination is an important tool to elicit information from a witness, a Delhi court has said that "indecent" and "scandalous" questions cannot be put to them as it can be misused for harassment. Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar while hearing a revision petition, held that a witness would have no protection at their disposal against "indecent" and "scandalous" questions asked during cross examination, if the magistrate order is considered interim and unchallengeable.
"A cross examination is an important tool to elicit information from the witness, but at the same time it can be misused to harass a witness. "If the witness feels harassed and the trial court is unable to save him from harassment, there would be no remedy available to him... Thus, a witness would have no protection against indecent and scandalous question or questions aimed to insult or annoy him and otherwise irrelevant questions aimed at harassing and delaying the trial," the judge said.
The court, however, agreed to the contention that if the court starts accepting revision petitions against allowing or disallowing every question in cross examination, the trial would not proceed at all. The judge also cautioned that a trial court should not be much assertive that accused becomes handicapped in asking questions or liberal that witnesses are harassed by irrelevant questions during cross examination. The court was hearing a revision petition against a magisterial court order of May 24 to the petitioner Sunita Mittal seeking production of her Income Tax Returns (ITR)for the period 2005-06 to 2011-2012.
The magisterial court was hearing a case pertaining to Negotiable Instrument Act wherein it was alleged that one Dilip Kumar had taken a loan of Rs 1.43 crore on October 24, 2011, from Mittal and had issued post-dated cheques which were later allegedly dishonoured on presentation. Kumar has claimed that he had repaid the loan amount and had pleaded before the magistrate court that ITR was needed in order to verify whether loan was repaid or not. The court, while setting aside the magisterial court order seeking production of IT returns, said, "Accordingly, the revision petition is allowed with the direction to Metropolitan Magistrate to afford further opportunity for cross examination to the accused in which the Magistrate would allow only those relevant questions confined to repayment of the loan by the accused."
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