Rediff.com« Back to articlePrint this article

Gandhy challenges trial court order allowing narco test

November 04, 2009 12:45 IST

Top Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy has approached the Delhi high court challenging the trial court's order allowing narco-analysis test on him.

A Delhi court had on October 31 allowed the police to conduct a narco-analysis test on Gandhy as the investigators had alleged that the Maoist leader was not cooperating with them in the investigations.

The Delhi police had told the court that Gandhy, a Politbureau member of the outfit, had alleged that it had not been able to elicit much information about the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist even after using all scientific methods of interrogation.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja allowed the contention of Public Prosecutor Naveen Kumar who relied upon a Delhi high court judgment stating that use of narco analysis test is of particular relevance in terror-related cases, conspiracy to commit murder and other serious offences where the investigating agency do not have vital leads.

It also relied on the opinion of a medical board of the AIIMS, which said that there was no medical evidence to suggest that Ghandy cannot withstand the test.

"The test should be conducted under strict medical supervision because of the long history of hypertension and urinary tract infection," the AIIMS report had said.

However, Ghandy's lawyer Rebecca M John had argued that the test would violate the Constitutional right under which an accused cannot be asked to be a witness in his own case.

She also argued that his health would not allow such a test.

Ghandy was arrested from New Delhi in September.

© Copyright 2024 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.