 The first question is what is the relevance of the terms hostile witness, adverse witness, unfavorable witness or unwilling witness in the context of Indian Evidence Act. Good evening friends. I am appearing after a long gap. Now, will you find these expressions in either in the Evidence Act or in the CRPC, that is, hostile witness, adverse witness, unfavorable witness, unwilling witness. You don't find these expressions either in the Evidence Act or in the Code of Criminal Procedure. Those are all terms of English law. At common law, if a witness exhibited manifest antipathy by his diviner, answers and attitude to the cause of the party calling him, such party was not as a general rule, permitted to contradict him with his previous inconsistent statements nor allowed to impeach his credit by general evidence of bad character. But that position has changed. Even in England, the above view is no more valid. The authors of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, advisedly avoided the use of any of those terms, so that in India, the grant of permission to cross-examine a party by his own witness is not conditional on the witness being declared adverse or hostile. In fact, I have come across various judgments of magistrates, session judges, even constitutional courts, saying that we just declared hostile. In fact, in very many depositions, when the witness turns unfriendly to the prosecution, to the public prosecutor, the prosecutor will say, I am declaring this witness hostile. Then the judge will record in the depositions witness declared hostile. How can it be? He is not hostile to the court. He is not hostile to the opposite party. He is not hostile to the accused. He is only hostile to the public prosecutor or to the prosecution. So there is no justification for the court or magistrate or session judge conducting trial to record in the depositions witness declared hostile. He is not hostile to the court or to the opposite party. He is only hostile to the public prosecutor. That's all. You may find that these expressions, adverse witness, hostile witness, unfaithful witness, they are being not used in any of the statute in the Indian setting. That you will find stated by the apex court, by the great Justice Sarkarya in Southpaw versus Delhi administration. Southpaw versus Delhi administration. AIR 1976, Supreme Court 294 corresponding to 1976, Volume 1, SCC 727. Volume 1, 1976, Volume 1, SCC 727. The judges are Justice Bhagwati and Justice Sarkarya. Sarkarya being the author of the judgments.