Najeeb Ahmed case: Record your consent or refusal on lie detector test, court tells all 9 students

New Delhi: The Patiala House court on Thursday asked all the nine Jawaharlal Nehru Universitu (JNU) students to appear before it and record their consent or refusal to undergo the lie detector test in a case relating to missing Najeeb Ahmed.

The chief metropolitan magistrate has fixed April 6 as next date of hearing and has asked all nine students to appear on the date.

Earlier, the court had said that it will decide on Thursday whether nine JNU students can be asked by Delhi Police to give their consent for lie detector test.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass, who was scheduled to pass the order, had deferred the matter saying that the order was not ready. 

The court had on March 15 reserved its order after the counsel appearing for the students submitted that the "lie detector test is unconstitutional and illegal unless it is voluntary".

Earlier, the Delhi Police had issued notice to the students and asked them to appear before it for a lie-detector test.

After receiving the summons, as many as nine students had opposed the police`s move.

Earlier in February, the Delhi Police was pulled up by the Delhi High Court over their slow progress in the case and was asked to explore other prospects of probe like polygraph test of other persons connected with the disappearance of Ahmed as all other leads in this case have not yielded any good result.

The High Court was hearing an application by one of the nine students, who are suspects in the case, seeking recall of the High Court`s order dated December 14 and December 22, 2016.

The application had alleged that by means of these two orders, the court was regulating the manner of investigation which was prejudicing the probe and violating their rights under Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution.

The applicant had also challenged a notice issued to him by the Delhi Police to appear before the trial court on Friday to give consent for lie-detector test.

The Delhi Government`s counsel opposed the application, stating that the same student had moved a similar plea through another lawyer earlier and the High Court on January 23 disposed it off by asking the student to come forward.

Earlier, the Delhi Police had conveyed to the high court that it has not been able to carry out lie-detector tests on nine "suspect" students, as none of them responded despite multiple notices.

A habeas corpus plea was moved by Najeeb`s mother, Fatima Nafees, who sought direction to trace her son who has been missing since the intervening night of October 14-15. Najeeb, 27, a first year M.Sc. student, went missing from his JNU hostel, allegedly after a row with members of RSS student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).