Questions to be put up to the witnesses

Picture a cross-examination in a Kurla Sessions Court. The lawyer asks a witness, “You were drunk that night, weren’t you?” The judge interrupts: “Do you have any basis for that?” Another lawyer asks a victim about her past relationships and is stopped at once. Why can one question be asked and another not? The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 sets out, in a run of sections, what lawyers may ask, what they must not, and what a Judge must stop.

In two minutes

Leading questions are barred in chief and re-examination if objected to but permitted in cross (s.146); in cross a witness may be asked questions testing veracity, identity and standing, or injuring character (s.149), subject to the Court’s control (ss.151–155) and the bar on contradicting answers that go only to credit (s.156).

The rest of this chapter

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