A Delhi court on Wednesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Forensic Test Laboratory in Rohini here to conclude the polygraph test on alleged arms dealer Abhishek Verma by the end of this month.
Anti-Sikh riots case
The probe agency is conducting the test on him in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case involving senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler. Mr. Verma is a prosecution witness in the case.
Passing the direction, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Amit Arora fixed December 15 as the next date for further hearing.
Meanwhile, the former Director of Prosecution of the Delhi government, B.S. Joon, has accepted the court’s request to oversee the test. The court was informed about it on Wednesday.
The court had on October 30 appointed Mr. Joon as court commissioner to oversee the test following filing of an application by Mr. Verma accusing the laboratory of defending Mr. Tytler during his polygraph test.
Mr. Verma had alleged that officials of the forensic lab were holding a “mini-trial” and acting in an “unfair and biased” manner.
“The senior scientific officer was acting in a very biased manner and trying to defend the accused person in the present case,” Mr. Verma had alleged in his application.
The CBI had registered the case on a complaint by Lakhwinder Kaur, whose husband was killed along with two others by a mob at Gurdwara Pul Bangas in north Delhi. She has accused Mr. Tytler of inciting the mob which allegedly attacked the gurdwara. Riots had broken out in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Mr. Verma had said in a statement recorded by the CBI that Mr. Tytler paid about ₹1 crore to Surinder Singh Granthi, a prosecution witness in the case, and arranged visa for $50,000 to send his son Narinder Singh, another witness in the case, to Canada in return for a statement in his favour.
