Custody extended of men held for Jaitley call records

A city court on Friday extended the police custody of the three private detectives arrested on charges of retrieving the call detail records of BJP leader Arun Jaitley. Metropolitan Magistrate Purshottam Pathak extended police custody of Neeraj, Anurag and Nitin till February 25 after the Delhi Police Special Cell told the court that the men were needed to decipher the "massive amount of encrypted data", which had been recovered from their e-mail ids and cellphones.

The court, however, denied police request for five-day custody, allowing police to keep the three men for three days to fulfil the "technical requirements in the investigation".

"The accused persons had retrieved massive data, which is in an encrypted form, and their presence is needed to decipher it. We need their custody to decode the encrypted data as only they are aware of the software they have used," police told the court on Friday.

Police also said the e-mail ids used by the three men were configured with their mobile phones, which could "only be accessed with the password in the personal knowledge of the accused".

The counsel for accused opposed the police plea for extension of custody, saying the main accused in the case Arvind Dabas was already in judicial custody and police had made all the recoveries from them.

"They have not been able to show any evidence requiring extension of police custody" Anurag's counsel said. However, police submitted certain recoveries made by it to the court in a sealed document, following which the court allowed the extension of custody.

The main accused in the case, Delhi Police constable Arvind Dabas, who was arrested on February 14, is in judicial custody till March 6.

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