Rape case: FSL pulled up for having non-competent officers

NEW DELHI: Irked over non-availability of competent forensic experts for conducting DNA examination, a Delhi court has directed a forensic science laboratory ( FSL) here to hold the test again on an accused in a gangrape case of a minor girl in a moving car in 2010.

The court's order came after the prosecutor submitted to it that the expert who had conducted the DNA / finger printing examination in the case was "not a competent officer" as per the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) norms.

Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau noted that in the DNA report of the experts of Rohini-based FSL, it was stated that DNA could not be "isolated" from the forensic sample.

The court was dealing with a case in which Delhi resident Hitesh was accused of gang raping a 15-year-old girl with his associate Sunil's help in a moving car on March 19, 2010 morning at Bawana in North West Delhi after kidnapping her.

The police had said as the girl resisted the rape attempt in the car, the accused had hit her hard on her backbone, leading her to suffer immediate paralysis waist downward. The girl had died last year after a long medical treatment.

Sunil was absconding since then and was arrested in the case in September this year. He was caught by police in another gang rape case this year in which he had allegedly adopted a similar modus operandi of kidnapping and then raping the victim in a moving car in North West Delhi.

The court said as Sunil has been arrested now, his samples would also be required to be sent for DNA examination.