Aarushi murder case: SC dismisses Talwars’ petition

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar seeking the reports of polygraph, narco-analysis and brain-mapping test conducted on their three helpers who were the initial accused in the murder of their daughter Aarushi.

A bench of justices BS Chauhan and SA Bobde had on Monday reserved its order after the Talwar’ couple, who are facing trial for allegedly killing their teenaged daughter, pleaded these reports are essential to defend themselves while the CBI is opposed their plea saying it is a tactic on the part of the couple to prolong the trial.

The Talwars had approached the apex court challenging the order of the trial court and the Allahabad High Court dismissing their plea for a direction to the agency to produce the reports of tests carried out on Krishna, who worked in Talwar’s dental clinic; Raj Kumar, who was employed as domestic help with the Talwars’ family friends Durranis; and Vijay Mandal, who was working as a domestic help in the same apartment block where the Talwars lived.

Pleading for scientific records to be taken on record by the trial court, senior advocate UU Lalit, appearing for the Talwars, submitted such tests were conducted on the couple which extinguished any possibility of their involvement in the crime but the tests done on their servants suggested the possibility of their involvement. Lalit said when the prosecution case was entirely based on circumstantial evidence, “I am entitled to alternative hypothesis on the basis of the material that is available with the investigating agency…”

“The jurisprudence of this country permits me the material gathered by the investigating agency pointing finger at someone else,” Lalit had said. Additional Solicitor General Siddharth Luthra opposed the plea saying the findings of such tests cannot be admissible as evidence and the couple filed different applications in various courts just to prolong the proceedings in the lower court and the trial judge hearing the case is retiring in November.

The ASG told the judges that the trial court rejected the Talwars’ plea on 18 June and even the high court on 19 July dismissed it. Aarushi was found dead with her throat slit in her bedroom on 16 May, 2008. The initial suspicion was on Hemraj whose body was later found on the terrace at their residence in Jalvayu Vihar in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi. According to the CBI, the murder of 14-year-old Aarushi five years ago was carried out by her parents and that no outsider was present.

The High Court, while dismissing their plea on narco-analysis and brain mapping test reports, however accepted their plea to have the sound simulation test report produced before the trial court. The test was conducted by CBI on the issue of how the Talwars could not hear anything when the murders were taking place. The CBI Sessions court in Ghaziabad, where the trial is going on, had rejected these applications on 18 June.