The court also said it was not monitoring the probe in the disappearance of Ahmad stating it was the domain of the police to decide the manner in which investigation has to be carried out.

The Monday’s observation is in contradiction with the Court’s order last week in which a bench of bench of justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel had said: “The student had gone missing in October (2016), it is February now. Nearly four months have gone by and none of the leads are going anywhere. We asked for polygraph test as the other leads have not yielded any results.” 

The court’s observation on Monday came during the hearing of an application by one of the nine students, who are suspects in the case, seeking recall of the high court’s December 14 and December 22, 2016 orders. 

The ‘confusion’ over court’s earlier orders

Hearing a plea filed by Najeeb’s mother Fatima Nafees on December 22, the Delhi High Court had directed police to conduct lie detector tests of 9 JNU students allegedly having connection in the case relating to missing student Najeeb Ahmed.

“Conduct the lie detector test of nine persons as soon as possible,” division bench of Justice G.S. Sistani and Justice Jayant Nath had asked Crime Branch of Delhi Police. Although, not without their consent. 

However despite repeated requests by the police to the suspected students, the students hadn’t turned up for the test. 

It was on this court’s order – reported widely by media – that the lawyer of one of the suspected students had sought a clarification on it.

 

Observing that the bench was not monitoring the case and has not directed any lie-detector test to be carried out on anyone, the court also informed the student’s lawyer that if his client does not want to undergo the test, he can refuse to do so. 

Meanwhile, Najeeb Ahmad’s family prayed before the court that probe be handed over to some other agency after Delhi police failed to trace him since October 15. 

“Delhi police comes up with a new theory on every hearing. Sometimes, they claim Najeeb was seen here or spotted there but the reality is that they have been unable to find him. For this reason, we demanded before the court to hand over the probe to some other agency or constitute a special investigation team,” Najeeb’s brother, Mujeeb Ahmad, told ScoopWhoop News.  

During the hearing on Monday, a bench of justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel said the court was “foxed” by the lack of information about missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed’s whereabouts even after five months of his disappearance. 

“It is very strange. Five to six months have gone by since he disappeared. Something should have come out, even if something worse has happened, it should have come out by now,” the bench said.

In a status report filed before the court, the agency said some WhatsApp messages were received by the police and family of Najeeb that he has been seen in Odisha and in Bijwasan area of Southwest Delhi and teams were sent to both places.

While nothing conclusive materialised from Bijwasan, the team sent to Odisha is yet to conclude its probe, senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra representing Delhi Police informed court. 

(With PTI inputs)

Feature image source: PTI/File Photo