Former Director of Prosecution B S Joon made court commissioner for Abhishek Verma's lie detector test
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court today appointed former Director of Prosecution B S Joon its commissioner to oversee the lie detector test of controversial arms dealer Abhishek Verma, a witness in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in which senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler is an accused.
The court's order came on the application of Verma, who accused a forensic lab here of trying to shield Tytler during earlier polygraph tests.
In his application, Verma sought setting up a commitee of eminent persons, including a judicial officer, to observe the proceedings during the test.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Amit Arora has now fixed the matter for hearing on November 1 when the CBI is likely to inform it about a suitable date for the test.
Senior advocate H S Phoolka, appearing for the 1984 riots victims, said the consent document of the former director of prosecution on being appointed the court commissioner will also be submitted on the next date of hearing.
Verma, who has been undergoing polygraph test at the government-run forensic science laboratory at Rohini here, alleged in his application to the court that officials of the FSL were holding a "mini trial" and acting in an "unfair and biased" manner.
While Tytler, who has been given a clean-chit thrice by the CBI in the riots case, refused to undergo the lie detector test, Verma gave conditional consent for it if provided round-the-clock security claiming threat to his life.
The court had on August 2 asked the CBI to conduct the test on Verma.
The case relates to the riots at Gurudwara Pulbangash in North Delhi where three people were killed on November 1, 1984, a day after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Tytler denied his role in the riots, but the court ordered further investigation despite the CBI having submitted closure reports in the case thrice in the past. The victims had filed a protest petition challenging the CBI's closure reports in the case.
The court had on December 2015 directed the CBI to further investigate the matter and decided to monitor the progress every two months to ensure no aspect was left uninvestigated.
The agency had reinvestigated the case of killing of Badal Singh, Thakur Singh and Gurcharan Singh near the gurudwara after a court in December 2007 refused to accept its closure report.