Hyderabad: A designated CBI court on Thursday permitted the Central Investigating Agency to conduct forensic tests on Satyam Computers' former Chairman B Ramalinga Raju and others accused in the multi-crore accounting fraud in the IT firm.
The XIV Additional Chief Metropolitan magistrate, K Sudhakar, accepted the CBI s plea to perform brain-mapping and lie-detector tests on Ramalinga Raju, his brother and Satyam's former managing director Rama Raju, and its ex-CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, who would undergo both the tests within a period of next eight weeks.
The judge, however, ruled that the actual recording of the lie-detector tests shall be done by an independent agency (such as hospital) and conducted in the presence of the defence counsel.
The CBI in its petition on March 24 had sought to conduct lie detector and brain mapping tests on the Satyam accused, stating that they did not share the information fully about the fudging of the company s accounts. Hence, it is just and necessary to conduct the scientific tests for the purpose of investigation.
The defence counsel, however, sought that the petition for conducting the scientific tests be dismissed as they are likely to pose a health hazard to Ramalinga Raju who was suffering from cardiac problems and blood pressure.
The defence counsel in his counter had further said scientific tests sought by the petitioner violate Article 19 (1)(a) and Article 20 (3) of the Constitution of India, and granting permission for the purpose of conducting scientific
tests is not permissible under section 167 (2)(a) of CrPC.
The CBI counsel contended that the probe agency was entitled to conduct the scientific tests under section 53 of CrPC and the administration of scientific tests would not amount to violation of Article 20 (3) of the Constitution.
The judge after hearing the final arguments in the matter on July 4 had reserved his orders for Thursday, July 9.
In his orders today, the judge observed that It is a fit case to give permission to the petitioner to conduct Lie Detector Test and Brain Map tests. Therefore the petitioner is permitted to conduct the Lie Detector Test and Brain Map test on the accused within a period of eight weeks from the date of this order.
The court also put in place certain conditions stating any self-incriminating statement if made by the accused cannot be used or relied upon by the prosecution.
The investigating-officer shall intimate the date and time of tests to the respondents/accused and a full medical and effectual narration of the incident must be recorded.
The Raju brothers and V Srinivas are likely to undergo the scientific tests at the Andhra Pradesh Forensic Science laboratory in Hyderabad.
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