Najeeb case: Court reserves order on JNU students' polygraph test

New Delhi: A Delhi court today said it will decide on March 20 whether nine JNU students can be asked by Delhi Police to give their consent for lie detector test in a case relating to the varsity’s missing student Najeeb Ahmed.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass reserved the order after the counsel appearing for the students submitted that the “lie detector test is unconstitutional and illegal unless it is voluntary”.

The nine students, who are suspects in the case, have approached the court through their counsel Viswa Bhushan Arya challenging the notice sent to them by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police seeking their presence before the magistrate for recording of their statement that whether they were willing to undergo the lie detector test.

In its notice issued on January 23, the probe agency had claimed that their lie detector test was required to get information about Najeeb’s whereabouts.

The notice was sent after the Delhi High Court had asked the police to explore other avenues of probe, like a polygraph test of persons connected to Najeeb, as all other leads had not yielded any result.

27-year-old Najeeb has been missing since October 14-15 last year after a scuffle at his JNU hostel allegedly with ABVP activists the previous night. The RSS students’ wing has denied any involvement in his disappearance.