Petition On Jagan's Narco Test Adjourned

The CBI special court, on Thursday, adjourned the hearing on a CBI petition seeking permission to conduct polygraph, narco and BEAP (Brain Electrical Activation Profile) tests on both YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and his auditor Vijay Sai Reddy, to 19 June.

The court postponed the petition, as the counsels of Jagan and Vijay Sai Reddy raised objections towards the narco tests.

After hearing the arguments and counter arguments, the special court adjourned the petition to 19 June.

Earlier, the CBI sought permission to subject both Jagan and Vijay Sai Reddy to the tests, charging that Jagan was not being cooperative, and that he was reluctant to reveal anything despite persistent questioning about his assets.

"Jagan did not reveal any tangible information about the chain of transactions (of the deals that he had struck), the individuals involved, and the overseas accounts," the counsel said.

The CBI submitted a memo, asserting that "Jagan is the repository of the entire information, documents and the details of the hawala transactions, and he is not revealing any of it".

The CBI further contended that Jagan was cleverly derailing the process of investigation by saying that it was Vijay Sai Reddy who "is in the know of most of the transactions, documents and information."

The CBI memo contended that administering new scientific techniques does not cause any bodily harm, that the information extracted by these methods will be used only for strengthening the investigation, and that such information may not be admitted as evidence at the time of trial.

The memo suggested that such scientific tests are a softer option to the "alleged apprehension of third degree methods by the investigators".

Polygraph and BEAP tests are the methods that respectively serve the purpose of lie detection and gauging the subject's familiarity with the information relating to the crime, the memo stated.

However Jagan's counsel Ashok Reddy objected to the CBI's plea, arguing that filing such a petition was strange in view of the Supreme Court's ruling that these tests are illegal without consent from the individual concerned.

It was stranger because the CBI's plea for such a test on Vijay Sai was dismissed by the CBI court already, he said.(INN)