Bengaluru: The high court has taken exception to 20-odd forest officials, who had issued blank permits to enable illegal transportation of iron ore, being treated as prosecution witnesses in a 2012 case involving former Janardhana Reddy as accused no 1.
Quashing an order passed by a special court trying the multi-crore illegal iron ore transportation case, Justice M Nagaprasanna recently observed that an accused cannot be a witness on behalf of the prosecution. The judge asked the special court to keep in mind his observations and consider afresh an application filed by one of the accused, requesting that the forest officials be tried as accused and not be allowed to depose as prosecution witnesses.
S Muthaiah, retired deputy conservator of forest and accused no. 4 in the case, had filed the application and also objected to 20-odd forest officials being brought in as witnesses against him and other accused.
Janardhana Reddy has been accused of using forged permits for illegal transportation of iron ore during 2009-10. Twenty-three forest officials, who were holding office at intermittent intervals, were said to have acted in connivance with the accused. During investigation, the 23 officials admitted they had handed over to the accused blank permits with their signature and the same documents were used for illegal transportation of iron ore.
After perusing the materials on record, Justice M Nagaprasanna pointed out that witnesses in the case at hand are participants in the crime to some extent as they admitted to signing blank documents. “If they admit to signing blank documents, then they become accomplices, along with other accused who could be charged with some of the offences. Therefore, it is rudimentary that an accused cannot be a witness on behalf of the prosecution, and a person who is admittedly guilty cannot run away from punishment, merely because he has been arrayed as a witness,” the judge said.