Delhi High Court Pulls Up Trial Court For Discharging Accused In Rape Case Based On Victim’s Polygraph Test

The Delhi High Court has pulled up a trial court in the national capital for discharging an accused in a rape case on the basis of the results of polygraph test conducted on the victim.

Calling it erroneous, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said that the result of polygraph test at best could have been considered as part of the investigation and tested during the trial on the touchstone of testimonies of the prosecutrix and other witnesses, since such result by itself is not a piece of independent evidence.

"Trial Court relying on the polygraph test and discharging the accused while making an observation that the victim was lying whereas the accused was truthful without even the trial commencing are examples of taking mechanical aid in a mechanical manner against the settled principles of criminal jurisprudence, thus making the very foundation of such orders erroneous and illegal."

Court said a probable truth or a probable lie, presented to the Court through a polygraph test report when neither any medical/expert witness nor the prosecutrix or other witnesses, or electronic evidence etc. had been brought on record by way of their examination, the MLCs and the statements of the prosecutrix and the witnesses under Section 161 Cr.P.C. and Section 164 Cr.P.C. were to be made basis of order on charge and a polygraph test report could not have substituted the said material on record.

Justice Sharma was dealing with the victim’s plea against the trial court order discharging three accused persons, one male and two females. While the male accused was discharged for the offence of rape, the other two women accused were discharged for the offences of hurt and criminal intimidation.

While modifying the order, the court noted with strong disapproval that the trial court judge who granted interim protection and later anticipatory bail to the accused, was neither the Trial Court nor was appreciating evidence at the stage of trial nor supervising the investigation in any manner but was only holding a bail roster and had, on his own, asked the police to conduct polygraph test, not only of the accused but also of the victim.

“The admissibility of the evidence, truthfulness of the statement of the victim or even admissibility of the polygraph test and its extent, could not have been gone into at the stage of framing of charge by the learned Trial Court as settled by way of judicial precedents. The learned Trial Court was not authorized or competent to conduct a mini-trial at the stage of framing of charge,” the court said.

It added,

“In case the criminal courts will start discharging accused on the basis of a polygraph test at the stage of charge itself, a criminal trial - instead of testing the veracity of the statement of the victim or prosecution proving its case beyond reasonable doubt - will wriggle down to appreciation of a polygraph test and not the test of the material collected by the prosecution and the statements and testimonies of the victim.”

The court concluded that the offence of rape is made out against the male accused as there was enough material on record to proceed against him for the purpose of trial. It also said that the charge for committing offence of causing hurt as well as common intention was also made out against the other two women accused.

“In view thereof, this Court sets aside the order of the learned Trial Court to the extent whereby respondent no. 2 was discharged under Section 376 of IPC and respondent no. 4 and 5 were discharged under Section 323/34 of IPC. Thus, the impugned order is modified only to this extent,” the court said.

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr. Prateek Baghel and Mr. Deepak Arya, Advocates.

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. Naresh Kumar Chahar, APP for the State.