Social Democratic Party of India

The Social Democratic Party of India, (SDPI), has hailed the Supreme Court of India for ruling narco analysis, brain-mapping and polygraph tests without the consent of accused as illegal.

   A. Sayeed, SDPI's general secretary, in a statement said: "Hats off to Supreme Court for realizing that these tests violated the constitutional provisions and amounted to cruel and degrading treatment and unwarranted intrusion into personal liberty”.

    Sayeed said such tests invade into the privacy of an individual considered sacrosanct under the Right to Life and Liberty provided in the Constitution of India. The Supreme Court has rightly said: “We have elaborated how the compulsory administration of any of these techniques is an unjustified intrusion into the mental privacy of an individual. It would also amount to ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’ with regard to the language of evolving international human rights norms. Furthermore, placing reliance on the results gathered from these techniques comes into conflict with the ‘right to fair trial’.”, he stated.

    The SDPI general secretary expressed satisfaction that Supreme Court has trashed the argument of the Central Government that overriding public interest to investigate terrorist offences would require administration of such tests to procure evidence. The Bench rightly noted: “Invocations of a compelling public interest cannot justify the dilution of constitutional rights such as the ‘right against self-incrimination’,” Sayeed said.

    Sayeed pointed out that the Supreme Court has also said the Central Government’s contention that the use of these techniques will only be sought in cases involving heinous offences only rings hollow since there will no principled basis for restricting their use once the investigators are given the discretion to do so.

   He hoped that the investigating agencies would adhere to the directives of the Supreme Court and follow the guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission which had published it for the Administration of Polygraph Test (Lie Detector Test) on an Accused in 2000. The Court has observed that these guidelines should be strictly adhered to and similar safeguards should be adopted for conducting the `narco analysis technique’ and the `brain electrical activation profile’ test.