A special court here has rejected the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad's plea seeking a polygraph, voice layer and psychological analysis tests for DRDO scientist Pradeep Kurulkar, an accused in an espionage case.
Special judge V R Kachre on Saturday rejected the ATS' application requesting the court to seek Kurulkar's consent for a polygraph test, voice layer and psychological analysis test.
Kurulkar, the then-director of a laboratory affiliated with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Pune, was arrested on May 3 under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking confidential information to a Pakistani intelligence operative. DRDO suspended Kurulkar from service a few days after his arrest.
Accused cannot be forced to undergo the said tests: Court
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Defence counsel Rhishikesh Ganu said the accused cannot be forced to undergo the said tests and argued that the entire case was based on telephonic communication and electronic gadgets, which are with the ATS.
The judge in his order said, "...I am of the view that the accused without his consent cannot be forced to undergo either polygraph test or voice layer and psychological analysis test".
Citing a Supreme Court judgement, the court said it is crystal clear and well-settled law that no individual should be forcibly subjected to any of the techniques in question, whether in the context of investigation in criminal cases or otherwise.
Doing so would amount to an unwarranted intrusion into personal liberty, it said.
"Considering the overall discussion and relying on the landmark judgement of Smt Selvi and Ors. VS State of Karnataka, I am of the view that both the applications are liable to be rejected," the order stated.
ATS Chargesheet
Earlier, the ATS in its chargesheet in the case alleged that Kurulkar was attracted to the Pakistani Intelligence Operative, who used the alias 'Zara Dasgupta', and chatted with her about Indian missile systems among other classified defence projects. Kurulkar and 'Zara Dasgupta' were in contact through WhatsApp as well as voice and video calls.
'Dasgupta' claimed to be a software engineer based in the UK and befriended him by sending obscene messages and videos and during the investigation, her IP address was traced to Pakistan, the ATS had said in the chargesheet.
The Pakistani agent tried to get classified and sensitive information regarding the Brahmos Launcher, Drone, UCV, Agni Missile Launcher and Military Bridging System, among other things.
As per ATS, he chatted with her about various projects, including surface-to-air missiles (SAM), drones, Brahmos and Agni Missile Launchers and UCV.
The two were in contact from June 2022 to December 2022.
