VIJAYARAGHAVAN Vs. DEPUTY SUPDT OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision is directed against the order passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ernakulam allowing the C. B. I. Team to take the seven police officers (who are the petitioners in this revision petition) to Delhi for being subjected to polygraphic test at the central Forensic Science Laboratory, New Delhi . A copy of the order has been read before me and it does not indicate that the learned Magistrate specifically granted any such permission. The order only allows the request of the C. B. I. officers concerned that the accused persons arrested and produced before the learned Magistrate may be given to their custody for a period of 12 days from 11-11-1983.

(2.) THESE petitioners have been arrested in the course of investigation by the C. B. I. of a case relating to the suspected murder in march, 1981 of George Soman, who was then the Sub Inspector of Police, Panoor police Station. Evidently, the investigation by the C. B. I. was arranged in view of the agitation against the inefficacy of the investigation conducted by the local police and the Crime Branch. It appears as if the present investigating team is of the opinion that George Soman met with homicidal death and not suicidal death as was suspected at one time.

(3.) THE main objection voiced by the learned counsel for the petitioners is with regard to the polygraphic test. According to the learned counsel, even the subjection to this test, trespasses into the constitutional right guaranteed to the petitioners, which he described as the petitioners' right to silence. No doubt, the petitioners have a right to silence in so far as the questions tending to answers of self incriminating nature are concerned. But such protection does not exist in regard to putting other questions to the accused persons. THE learned counsel for the petitioners has placed reliance on the decision of the Supreme Court reported in Smt. Nandini Satpathy v. P. L. Dani and another (AIR. 1978 SC. 1025 ). Even this decision makes it clear that the investigator has right to interrogate not only witnesses but also persons suspected of having committed offence. THErefore, under the guise of protecting the constitutional rights of the petitioners there is no doubt that those rights are valuable and have to be protected by courts of law the right of the investigators to question the accused cannot be curtailed.