A Delhi’s Saket Court on Monday temporarily barred all media houses from broadcasting Aaftab Poonawalla’s narcoanalysis test (lie-detection) recordings and transcripts, the man accused of strangling and chopping the body into pieces of his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar.
The ruling was passed by Judge Rakesh Kumar Singh of the Saket District Court in response to an application seeking orders prohibiting all media outlets from broadcasting materials connected to the First Information Report (FIR).
“When Article 21 of the Constitution protects a person’s life and liberty, it also protects that person’s psychological state of mind. Any dissemination of sensitive information pertaining to a murder case will undoubtedly result in psychological repercussions on the accused as well as the victim’s family,” the Court reasoned.
The judge, on the other hand, opined that the application needed to be heard in its entirety so that all parties may present their arguments.
Thus, while temporarily prohibiting the news channel from airing the tapes, the Court ordered the state to serve a copy of the application on them and permitted media houses to file their replies.
The prosecutors said in their application that broadcasting the audio would harm not only the case but also the victim’s family. It was also warned that the law-and-order situation could be compromised.
Furthermore, it was asserted that the transcripts were already part of the court record, and so no one could use anything without the court’s approval.
Taking these representations into account, as well as the rights of both parties, all media houses was ordered not to air the tapes until April 17, when the case would be heard in detail.
The accused and deceased woman had met on dating app Bumble and had entered into a live-in relationship. They were originally based in Mumbai before relocating to Delhi last year.
According to police investigating the murder, the accused strangulated the woman on May 18 after a fight between the couple at a rented flat in Mehrauli, then chopped her body into 35 pieces, stored it in a freezer, and dumped them in different parts of the city over the next 18 days.
In November of last year, the court granted permission for narcoanalysis.
