**India’s Supreme Court has said that the use of a truth drug by the police for questioning suspects is illegal and a violation of their fundamental rights.**The court said a suspect’s consent was necessary to do the test and even then it could not be treated as evidence.
In many recent high-profile cases, Indian investigators have conducted these tests to find leads.
Correspondents say the ruling effectively means the police will no longer be able to do such tests.
“Narco, brain mapping and polygraph tests are illegal and a violation of personal liberty,” a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan ruled.
The court’s order came in response to petitions filed by several accused questioning the validity of narco and brain mapping tests.
In the test, a suspect is injected with sodium penthanol, a chemical that numbs powers of perception and supposedly makes it difficult for a person to lie during questioning.
The test results were never admissible in court as evidence, but police often made accused take these tests to get “vital clues” in a case.
Brain mapping and narco tests were conducted on the arrested Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy.
They were also done on the two men accused of killing 17 young women and children in Noida, a suburb of the Indian capital, Delhi.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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