Najeeb Ahmed case: JNU students’ plea against lie detector test dismissed

A Delhi court on Thursday dismissed the plea of nine Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students after they submitted that the Delhi Police cannot conduct a lie detector test on them in the case of disappearance of varsity student Najeeb Ahmed. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass also summoned all the nine students to appear before the court on April 6 to record their consent or refusal to undergo the lie detector test. The summon was issued because according to the Supreme Court, a polygraph test cannot be conducted without the approval of the individual.

Earlier, the Delhi Police had issued notices to nine students -- Ankit Ray, Vikrant Kumar, Arnab Chakraborty, Pushpesh Jha, Sunil Singh, Aishwarya Singh, Santosh Kumar, Vijender Thakur, and Abhijeet Kumar -- asking them to undergo a lie detector test. The students, however, challenged this notice and submitted that a “lie detector test is unconstitutional and illegal, unless it is voluntary”.

They then filed a plea that stated that they were neither named in the FIR nor was there any prima facie evidence against them. The students further stated that there was no justification or basis to subject them to a polygraph test or any other such test. The Crime Branch of Delhi Police had sent the notice to the varsity students after the High Court had asked the cops to explore all avenues, including a polygraph test of persons connected to Najeeb, to ascertain his whereabouts. Najeeb, 27, had gone missing from the university campus in October last year, following a scuffle with some Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members.