Legislation on witness protection was long overdue in India. In the wake of several incidents of attacks on witnesses, the Supreme Court of India directed the Centre to formulate a scheme to safeguard the interests of witnesses. On December 5, 2018, the Supreme Court approved the Witness Protection Scheme submitted to it by the Centre. It directed all the states and union territories to formulate legislation regarding the same. While few states adopted the scheme in its letter and spirit, many have not taken any step in this regard. The paper aims to critically examine the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018 by discussing the major provisions and looking at various challenges to its implementation. On examining the provisions of the scheme carefully, the authors found that the majority of the provisions in the scheme provided a framework for protection of witnesses from threats and intimidation. However, there are some areas that the scheme failed to address including online intimidation, issues of funding, maintain police force balance, mental well-being of witnesses, and interests of vulnerable witnesses. Several recommendations are provided that can be adopted to make the scheme more witness centric.

在印度，早就应有关于保护证人的立法。在发生了几起袭击证人的事件之后，印度最高法院指示该中心制定一项保障证人利益的计划。2018年12月5日，最高法院批准了中心提交给其的证人保护计划。它指示所有州和联邦领土制定有关这方面的立法。虽然很少有州以文字和精神采用该计划，但许多国家在这方面没有采取任何步骤。该文件旨在通过讨论主要条款并审视其实施的各种挑战，以严格审查2018年的证人保护计划。在仔细研究计划的规定后，作者发现，该计划的大多数规定为保护证人免受威胁和恐吓提供了一个框架。但是，该计划未能解决某些方面，包括在线恐吓，资金问题，维持警力平衡，证人的心理健康以及弱势证人的利益。提供了一些建议，可以使该计划更以证人为中心。