Assam: Gauhati HC asks state legal service authority to give status reports

Witness Protection Scheme

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: A division bench of the Gauhati High Court comprising Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury asked the member secretary of the Assam State Legal Services Authority (ASLSA) to file a detailed affidavit regarding the steps taken for dissemination of information about the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018, and the status of special facilities in various courts in Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh by October 15, 2025.

During the hearing of a PIL (2/2024) on the lack of public awareness about the Witness Protection Scheme, the bench ordered the ASLSA member secretary to be the tenth impleaded respondent in the case.

The bench further said that the ASLSA member secretary should liaise with the secretaries of the state legal services authorities of the other three states and collate such information for the court to have a fair understanding of the deficiencies, if those exist at all.

The petitioner, Prachurjya Borbaruah, filed the PIL as he believes that there is a lack of information dissemination about the Witness Protection Scheme and the provisions under it.

“The petition reminds us of the responsibility of the judiciary to actively promote awareness about the scheme to ensure that the prospective beneficiaries have knowledge about such a scheme so that they can come forward to avail themselves of its protective provisions. This would also call for an assessment of whether the scheme is being effectively implemented in the states of Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh,” the bench said.

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