LUCKNOW, Feb. 14 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has directed the state government to apprise it of the implementation of the scheme related to the protection of witnesses in criminal cases.

Converting a writ petition related to protection of witnesses into 'suo moto', a division bench of Justice AR Masoodi and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi on February 11 observed: "Whether the prescribed format of the application as specified under section 6(8) of the Witness Protection Scheme, 2024, has been formulated in the same format or not."

The court also directed the state government to clarify whether any official website has been made available for receiving applications (for witness protection) or not. Besides, the court instruc...