By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Thursday reserved its verdict on the legality of the use of modern scientific techniques of polygraph, brain mapping and narco-analysis tests to probe a crime and collect evidence.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan reserved its ruling after hearing arguments for three days from various parties, including Solicitor General Goolam E. Vahanvati and senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appointed by the bench as amicus curiae to assist the court in the case.
The bench, which also included Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice J.M. Panchal, heard the arguments by counsel of various people, including Santokhben Jadeja from Gujarat, popularly known as “Godmother”, and some accomplices of fake stamp paper case accused Abdul Karim Telgi. Telgi and his accomplices are facing probe by various states’ police and other investigative agencies for their alleged criminal acts.
These accused people have challenged the legality of the use polygraph, brain mapping and narco-analysis by the investigative agencies to probe the crime.
During the arguments, Vahanvati justified the use of these three tests, saying they have the legal mandate under Section 53 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which lists a host of various modern techniques like DNA fingerprinting and collection of blood samples as perfectly legal tools to probe a crime.
He said the term “such other tests” occurring in the explanatory note of the Section 53 includes these three tests too.
“If these tests are properly considered to be steps in the aid of investigation and not for obtaining incrimination statements, there is no constitutional infirmity whatsoever,” said Vahanvati.
“These tests are scientific methods in furtherance of investigation. All these tests are considered to be the part of the process of collection of some subsequent evidence.
“These tests may provide some clues to the investigative agency to collect some evidence but the statements given by the accused against themselves during these tests are not of any evidentiary value,” clarified the law officer.
But Dave during his arguments, contended that parliament never intended to include these tests as tools for probe as Section 53 was last amended in 2005, when a list of various modern scientific techniques was included in it as legal tools for investigation.
But parliament did not specifically include these three tests, as it was conscious of the lack of their scientific basis, he argued.
Dave also contended that the use of these three tests as tools of investigation is not validated by Article 20(3) of the constitution, which says: “No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.”
“It means that the mandate of Article 20(3) clearly prohibits subjecting an accused to one or all of the three tests without obtaining his or her consent,” said Dave.
“There does not appear to be any legal system in the world, which has ether allowed or considered admissible the evidence collected with the help of any one or all of these tests,” he said.