Supreme Court: Chief Examination & Cross-Examination Of Witness Must Be Recorded On The Same Day Or Following Day

The Supreme Court in the case Mukesh Singh versus State of Uttar Pradesh observed and has reiterated that the chief examination and cross-examination of a witness must be recorded on the same day or the following day. Thus, there should be no ground for adjournment in recording the examination-in-chief/cross-examination of the witnesses.
The bench comprising of Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice CT Ravikumar observed and has made these observations while considering a special leave petition challenging an order granting bail to an accused in a murder case. Thus, the petitioner informed the Court that the examination of prosecution witness was getting adjourned despite the mandate under Section 309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
While taking the note of this situation, the bench observed that the mandate of law itself postulate that examination-in-chief followed with cross-examination is to be recorded either on the same day or on the day following. It stated that there should not be any ground for adjournment in recording the examination-in-chief/cross-examination of the prosecution witness, as the case may be.
It was noted by the bench that this dictum was stated in the case Vinod Kumar versus State of Punjab (2015) 3 SCC 220. It was directed by the bench the trial court to expedite the trial, while taking note of Section 309 CrPC and the case law precedent, and further directed that examination-in-chief and cross-examination is to be recorded either on the same day or on the day following but no long adjournment should be granted while recording of the statement of prosecution witnesses.

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