Write a note on the "Presiding Judge of a criminal trial should not be a spectator and a mere recording machine".

Question: Write a note on “the Presiding Judge of a criminal trial should not be a spectator and a mere recording machine”.

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Answer

Under Section 165 of the Indian Evidence Act, ‘for the purpose of obtaining proper proof of relevant facts, the Judge has been given the power to ask any question to a witness or to a party. Such a question may be asked at any time and may take any form and the question itself may relate to a relevant or an irrelevant fact.

The aforesaid statement has been drawn from the leading case of Ram Chander v. State of Haryana AIR 1982 SC 1036. In this case, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has noted that the adversary system of trial being what it is, there is an unfortunate tendency for a judge presiding over a trial to assume the role of a referee or an umpire and to allow the trial to develop into a contest between the prosecution and the defence with the inevitable distortions flowing from combative and competitive element entering the trial procedure.

If a criminal court is to be an effective instrument in dispensing justice, the presiding judge must cease to be a spectator and a mere recording machine. He must become a participant in the trial by evincing intelligent active interest by putting questions to witnesses in order to ascertain the truth.

“Every criminal trial is a voyage of discovery in which truth is the quest. It is the duty of a presiding Judge to explore every avenue open to him in order to discover the truth and to advance the cause of justice.”

“The Court, the prosecution and the defence must work as a team whose goal is justice, a team whose captain is the judge. The judge, ‘like the conductor of a choir, must, by force of personality, induce his team to work in harmony; subdue the raucous, encourage the timid, conspire with the young, flatter and old’.”

For that purpose, he is expressly invested by section 165 of the Evidence Act with the right to put questions to witnesses. Indeed the right given to a Judge is so wide that he may ‘ask any question he pleases, in any form, at any time, of any witness, or of the parties about any fact, relevant or irrelevant.

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Important Mains Questions Series for Judiciary, APO & University Exams

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3. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-III
4. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-IV
5. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-V
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