A key prosecution witness has clearly given fabricated testimony against me and I can prove this with documentary evidence. Can I file a criminal complaint for perjury against a witness who has given deliberately false evidence in my criminal trial in Kolkata?
If a witness in your case in Kolkata has lied under oath, you're right to feel that this strikes at the fairness of the entire proceeding, and Indian law does provide a mechanism to address it. Giving false evidence is an offence under Section 227 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (formerly Section 191 IPC), and perjury committed during a judicial proceeding can be prosecuted under the specific procedure laid out in Sections 340 to 344 of the CrPC, now carried forward under the BNSS. Importantly, this is not something a private party can simply file an FIR about on their own; it requires the court before which the false evidence was given to take specific action.
The process begins with an application, usually filed by the aggrieved party or their advocate, requesting the court to hold a preliminary inquiry under Section 340 CrPC into whether the witness's statement was indeed false and given with a deliberate, dishonest intention. If the court, after this inquiry, is satisfied that a case for perjury is made out, it can either file a complaint itself or direct the concerned authority to do so, after which a separate criminal case for perjury proceeds independently of your original matter. This safeguard exists to prevent misuse, since not every contradiction or mistaken statement amounts to perjury; the law requires clear evidence of deliberate falsehood.
Timing matters considerably here. It is usually more effective to raise the issue of false testimony during cross-examination itself, highlighting the contradictions on record, and then move the Section 340 application once the trial reaches an appropriate stage or concludes, so that the court has a full picture of the inconsistency before deciding whether to order prosecution.
Given the procedural complexity involved in initiating a perjury case, it's important to have your application properly grounded in the contradictions actually recorded during trial. The team at Aapka Legal Advice can help assess whether the false statement in your case meets the threshold courts require before ordering a perjury inquiry.
If a witness has lied in your Kolkata case and it has affected the outcome, don't let it go unaddressed. Speak with experienced criminal lawyers in Kolkata about filing a properly grounded application for prosecution of false evidence under the law.