The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday made it clear that interrogation from the accused is a statutory right of the police and cannot be done through video conference.
Two petition were filed in the High Court by gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. In this, the Court was requested to give instructions that there interrogation should be done through video conferencing. The police of Haryana and Chandigarh want to interrogate Lawrence Bishnoi in several cases.
Bishnoi, against whom a large number of FIRs have been registered in the States of Punjab and Haryana and who is also involved in a case registered in Union Territory Chandigarh.
The Chandigarh Police had to interrogate him in two firing incidents. These incidents took place in Sector 9 and 33 from Chandigarh. In other firing incidents, the police is suspected to be his hand. At the same time, Haryana Police had registered a murder case on July 21 in which Bishnoi is also named.
Bishnoi is currently lodged in Jodhpur Central Jail. The court has disposed both the petitions of Bishnoi through video conferencing. A single Bench of Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill said that interrogation of video conference is not possible as the police will not be able to properly detect his changing gestures etc. during interrogation.
“A trained interrogator may even be able to assess the veracity of answers from the manner an accused blinks his eyes or sighs or moves his feet. Further, at times during interrogation, in case any disclosure is made by the accused which has to lead to some kind of recovery of some articles or some other evidence, the accused may be required to be taken to place of occurrence”, said the Court.
Lawrence Bishnoi came into the limelight after threatening to kill Salman Khan. One of his video went viral. There are many fan pages of this gangster on social media.