Witness Protection and Fair-Trial Guarantees in Chhattisgarh: A Critical Analysis of Legal Safeguards, Institutional Implementation and Access to Justice

Background: Witness intimidation can alter investigations and trials. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of witness intimidation and how witness protection is legally and institutionally provided in the state of Chhattisgarh, in the context of access to justice. It adopts a combination of doctrinal and analytical approaches to examine the Constitution, the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, specially enacted provisions, the supreme court pronouncements, the vulnerable-witness guidelines of Chhattisgarh High Court, and the State's 2025 justice-capacity indicators. The protection laws provide for a variety of flexible and interim measures such as the assurance of confidentiality, testimony under the protection of the state, witness relocation and the protection of the witness's identity. Chhattisgarh has many institutional resources in the police system and legal aid infrastructure. Nonetheless, the lack of infrastructure around legal aid and the resources for legal services, coupled with judicial and forensic gaps, may result in unequal protection. The protection of witnesses in the justice system provides a cross-cutting integration of protections from the court, the police, the prosecution, and legal aid, in addition to protected and assisted filing, planned mitigation of regional security, and anonymous assessments of performance and legal testimony provided through technology in support of witness rights. Witness protection, in this context, measurable access to justice, would improve the reliability of witness testimony and ensure fairness in adversarial criminal proceedings.