Cuttack, April 26: Orissa High Court has directed the trial court to exercise caution in relying on "stock witnesses" in a case of large-scale illegal cultivation of over 72,000 cannabis plant.

The high court said: "Stock witnesses are always at the beck and call of police and helped them in various raids and searches. Stock witnesses are put up by the prosecution to speak to the facts and circumstances, which they did not actually witness, and they are merely the persons, who would be made to depose whatever the police wanted to be put on record."

"The court should have a cautious approach in relying upon the testimony of a stock witness," the single-judge bench of Justice S.K. Sahoo said.

The high court made the observation while considering application for bail on the ground that the independent witnesses in the case were stock witnesses of the prosecution and allegedly witnesses for the prosecution in other cases.

Most of the 18 charge sheet witnesses had been alleged to be stock witnesses.

However, Justice Sahoo held: "Merely because the independent witnesses were alleged to be witnesses for the prosecution in other cases, their evidence cannot be discarded on that score at this stage of consideration of bail application."

"It is to be proved by the defence at the stage of trial whether those independent witnesses are stock witnesses of the prosecution or not and then it would depend upon the trial court as to what evidentiary value is to be attached to the testimonies of those witnesses," Justice Sahoo ruled in his April 18 order, a copy of the full text of which is in possession of The Telegraph.