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When an offence is brought to the note of police, it is their responsibility to investigate into the matter to find out
who committed the crime, to ascertain the facts and circumstances, to collect and present whole set of these to
the court to find the accused guilty or not. It is the duty of police to apprehend the wrongdoer and present the
case before the court of justice to meet the ends of justice. But this seldom happens in present scenario.

 The reason behind this is criminals have become classy, sophisticated, hi-fi and are simply cutting-edge
as they are adopting new and enhanced techniques for commission of crimes. They hardly leave any sort
of evidences at the crime site or otherwise and on the contrary police and investigation agencies are stills
tuck on the longstanding tools, techniques of investigation of crimes. Police often use third-degree torture
to extract information. In many cases try to suppress the truth and make out fabricated cases for many
reasons as political influences or corruption to name a few. Consequently, custodial atrocities, custodial
 deaths are on an increase with leaps and bounds and all this is nothing but a big blow on the ‘Rule of
Law’. Also, where criminals leave no evidence of their alleged crimes, they escape punishments in the
absence of direct proof sufficient enough to establish the guilt. Moreover, where the victims turn hostile
there is no way left for the judiciary except to give accused benefit of doubt and set him free which
results in incarnation of criminals and loss of faith in criminal justice system of victim, victim’s family
and society at large.
 Forensic science plays a vital role in crime detection. The operation of forensic is nothing but application
of techniques and tools of basic science for various analysis of evidence associated with crimes. The
scientific examination by forensic scientists adjoins a missing link and strengthens the weak chain of
investigation. Now, when criminals are shrewd enough that they hardly leave any evidence, we need to
bring into picture forensic science. In Som Prakash vs. State of Delhi, Hon’ble Supreme Court
recognized the requirement, the necessity of scientific investigation. Also the Law Commission
emphasized on the need of training of Police officers in using scientific methods of investigation. Narco
Analysis, Polygraph and Brain-mapping are revolutionary tools of forensic science that can prove to be
very fruitful in crime investigation and trail

Ques on reliability of tests; Ashay jain

Brain mapping: It measures the changes in the electrical field potentials produced by
the sum of the neuronal activity in the brain by means of electrodes placed on the
surface of the skin covering the head and face. The changes directly related to
specific perceptual or cognitive events are called event-related potentials8. In simple
words, it is based on the finding that the brain generates a unique brain-wave
pattern when a person encounters a familiar stimulus9,10. Commonly used method in
India is called as Brain Electrical Activation Profile test, also known as the ‘P300
Waves test’.

During the test, subjects are exposed to auditory or visual stimuli (pictures, videos
and sounds) that are relevant to the facts being investigated alongside other
irrelevant words and pictures. Such stimuli can be broadly classified as material
‘probes’ and neutral ‘probes’. The underlying theory is that in the case of guilty
suspects, the exposure to the material probes will lead to the emission of P300 wave
components which will be duly recorded by the instruments. By examining the
records of these wave components, the examiner can make inferences about
the individual's familiarity with the information related to the crime3,11.
However, this measures only the memory or knowledge of the crime scene and
nothing else. For instance, a by-stander who witnessed a murder could
potentially be implicated as an accused if the test reveals that the said person
was familiar with the information related to the same. Similarly, little is known
about the impact of viewing portrayal of crime scene in the media such as
television, movies and newspaper on brain mapping. Hence, this test cannot be
used to prosecute an accused but can be used by an innocent as an ‘alibi’ by
proving that he/she does not have any memory about the crime on this test.

The published literature on this technique is very sparse. The term ‘Brain
Fingerprinting’ has not yet entered the Medical Sub-Headings (MeSH) term of -
PubMed (Medline). On conducting a literature search in PubMed by combining two
MeSH terms “Event-Related Potentials, P300” and “Forensic Medicine” yielded only
23 publications and another PubMed search by combining two MeSH terms “Brain
Mapping” AND “Forensic Medicine” (1966-June 2011) yielded only 72 publications.
On reviewing this published literature, it was found that results were inconclusive.
The sample sizes were small. Majority of the studies were open label and with poor
methodology. Sample studied were from the normal population rather than forensic
population. Each study has used a different protocol to interpret the data. There was
one interesting study which reported that deception detection based on P300
amplitude as a recognition index may be readily defeated with simple
countermeasures that can be easily learned12. Non availability of data on the effect of
brain wave mapping on neurological conditions (such as stroke, dementia, delirium,
head injury, amnestic syndromes, etc.) and psychiatric conditions (such as substance
intoxication or dependence conditions, schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety
disorders) makes matters worse. There is a paucity of data on this technique, and
applicability of this technique in the forensic field is remote at this point of time9,10.
There are several ongoing research studies using functional brain imaging studies in
the field of brain mapping, however, results from these studies are also inconclusive
and researchers have recommended that the functional brain images in brain
mapping also should not be admitted as evidence in the court of law

Rejection by Committtee

Meanwhile, the inventor of BEOS, C. R. Mukundan, has yet to publish a single paper about the
technique in a peer-reviewed journal. Last year, the central government appointed a committee
of six experts to probe Mukundan’s system. The committee, led by the Director of the National
Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, D. Nagaraja, concluded that BEOS was unreliable
as an investigative tool and should not be used as evidence in court. The Directorate of Forensic
Sciences immediately rejected the experts’ conclusion and reaffirmed its commitment to quack
technology.

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