What is a narco test?
Source: By The Indian Express
A court in Saket, New Delhi, has allowed Delhi Police to conduct a narco test on Aaftab Poonawalla, the 28-year-old man accused of killing his 27-year-old live-in partner Shraddha Walkar in May this year. Poonawalla allegedly chopped up Walkar’s body in many pieces, and disposed of them in a wooded area in South Delhi over several weeks.
After police moved court seeking permission for the test, Poonawalla consented, telling the judge he was aware of the consequences.
What is a narco test?
In a ‘narco’ or narcoanalysis test, a drug called sodium pentothal is injected into the body of the accused, which transports them to a hypnotic or sedated state, in which their imagination is neutralised. In this hypnotic state, the accused is understood as being incapable of lying, and is expected to divulge information that is true.
Sodium pentothal or sodium thiopental is a fast-acting, short duration anaesthetic, which is used in larger doses to sedate patients during surgery. It belongs to the barbiturate class of drugs that act on the central nervous system as depressants.
Because the drug is believed to weaken the subject’s resolve to lie, it is sometimes referred to as a “truth serum”, and is said to have been used by intelligence operatives during World War II.
Is this the same as a polygraph test?
No. A polygraph test is based on the assumption that physiological responses that are triggered when a person is lying are different from what they would be otherwise.
A polygraph test does not involved injecting drugs into the body; rather instruments like cardio-cuffs or sensitive electrodes are attached to the suspect, and variables such as blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration, change in sweat gland activity, blood flow, etc., are measured as questions are put to them.
A numerical value is assigned to each response to conclude whether the person is telling the truth, is deceiving, or is uncertain.
A test such as this is said to have been first done in the 19th century by the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, who used a machine to measure changes in the blood pressure of criminal suspects during interrogation.
Similar devices were subsequently created by the American psychologist William Marstron in 1914 and by the California police officer John Larson in 1921.
But why should tests such as these be done?
In recent decades, investigating agencies have sought to employ these tests in investigation, which are sometimes seen as being a “softer alternative” to torture or “third degree” to extract the truth from suspects.
However, neither method has been proven scientifically to have a 100% success rate, and remain contentious in the medical field as well.
Are there no restrictions on putting accused through these tests?
There is, indeed. In ‘Selvi & Ors vs State of Karnataka & Anr’ (2010), a Supreme Court Bench comprising then Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and J M Panchal ruled that no lie detector tests should be administered “except on the basis of consent of the accused”.
Those who volunteer must have access to a lawyer, and have the physical, emotional, and legal implications of the test explained to them by police and the lawyer, the Bench said.
It said that the ‘Guidelines for the Administration of Polygraph Test on an Accused’ published by the National Human Rights Commission in 2000, must be strictly followed. The subject’s consent should be recorded before a judicial magistrate, the court said.
Can the results of these tests be considered as “confessions”?
No, because those in a drugged-induced state cannot exercise a choice in answering questions that are put to them.
However, any information or material subsequently discovered with the help of such a voluntarily-taken test can be admitted as evidence, the Supreme Court said.
Thus, if an accused such as, say, Poonawalla, reveals the location of, say, a physical piece of evidence (which is often something like a murder weapon) in the course of the test, and police later find that specific piece of evidence at that location, the statement of the accused will not be treated as evidence, but the physical evidence will be treated as such.
The Bench took into consideration international norms on human rights, the right to a fair trial, and the right against self-incrimination under Article 20(3) of the Constitution.
“We must recognise that a forcible intrusion into a person’s mental processes is also an affront to human dignity and liberty, often with grave and long-lasting consequences,” the court said, observing that the state’s plea that the use of such scientific techniques would reduce ‘third degree’ methods “is a circular line of reasoning since one form of improper behaviour is sought to be replaced by another”.
In which recent criminal investigations have these tests been sought to be used?
There have been several.
The CBI had sought to give these tests to the driver and helper of the truck that hit the vehicle carrying the Unnao rape victim in Uttar Pradesh in July 2019.
In May 2017, Indrani Mukerjea, who is facing trial for allegedly murdering her daughter Sheena Bora in 2012, had offered to undergo the lie detector test. The CBI refused, saying they already had sufficient evidence against her.
Dr Rajesh Talwar and Dr Nupur Talwar, who were accused of killing their daughter Aarushi and help Hemraj in Noida in 2008, were given polygraph tests. A video of the narco test on their compounder, Krishna, was leaked to the media.
In August 2019, the CBI wanted to conduct polygraph and narcoanalysis tests on a former staffer of Punjab National Bank (PNB), who was in custody in the alleged Rs 7,000-crore fraud involving the absconding jewellers Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The manager, Gokulnath Shetty, declined consent.
In October 2020, the UP government sought to conduct polygraph and narco tests as part of the investigation into the alleged gangrape and murder of a 19-year old Dalit woman by four men of the Thakur caste in Hathras. The victim’s family refused.
