A Judge was standing at his window and looking at open ground where children were playing.
He saw a boy chasing a girl. In a moment, boy caught girl and stabbed her to death.
Judge called police. The boy was arrested. The girl was in love with some boy of other caste. His brother killed her to save family honour.
Now, the question is can judge convict this boy on basis of what he saw from the window.
The answer is No. The process will go like this:-
1) First Police will record statement of Judge. It will be treated complaint. Judge will be treated as an eye witness.
2) Police will arrest the boy and identification parade will be held. The boy will be mixed up in line of 10 other similar looking boys.
Then Judge will be asked to point out the boy whom he actually saw killing the girl.
This will be 'Evidence of Identification Parade'.
3) The trial of boy will go before some OTHER Judge.
There, this judge who saw incident will be called as Eye-Witness. He will be cross examined by lawyers.
Lawyer may ask like this," The day was cloudy. It was evening. His eyes have specs numbers for distance viewing. At that time he was not wearing any spec. And therefore he could not have clearly seen the face of boy... Etc."
After taking all evidence, if the OTHER JUDGE CONDUCTING TRIAL, comes to conclusion that the witness-judge has made no mistake in identifying boy, he will convict the boy.
So far as the Judge who actually saw the murder, has no power to convict murderer.
Haresh Raichura
11/6/2013
