Should Biren Singh Be Asked To Give Voice Sample? Supreme Court Asks After NFSU's Inability To Verify Clips

The Supreme Court today(April 6) expressed frustration over the inability of the central forensic laboratories to authenticate the audio clips allegedly implicating former Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh in the State's ethnic violence. It has asked the Union Government to explore whether Singh could visit the National Forensic Science University (NFSU), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, to give a voice sample.

In February last year, the Court had passed an order seeking production of the report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Guwahati, in a sealed cover. In May, a bench comprising former Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar, after expressing dissatisfaction with the report submitted by the Central FSL, had asked for a fresh FSL report. In August, the Court directed the NFSL to take up the exercise after the report of the CFSL indicated no clear findings. Later, in January this year, the Court directed the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) to examine the entire 48-minute clip and compare with the admitted voice of Singh.

Today, when a bench comprising Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice K Vinod Chandran took up the matter, it asked why no central laboratory is able to come up with conclusive findings.

Perusing the report, Justice Kumar said that according to the NFSL, the 48-minute audio has been tampered with. Therefore, it can't be ascertained if the voice in the audio belonged to the former Chief Minister or not.

Report reads: "Due to the inherent technical limitation mentioned above, reliable forensic speaker comparison and matching could not be carried out on the sample..."

He added that the report indicates the use of editing software.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, for the petitioner Kuki Organisation for Human Rights, explained that it is an admitted fact that the audio was modified to remove the voice of the person who had recorded the audio secretly. To this, Justice Chandran asked what evidentiary value such audio carries as the person recorded a private conversation without consent.

Bhushan responded that it was a 'serious matter' and added that he could ask his source to explore if the person who recorded the audio is willing to share the original audio at the risk of disclosing his identity.

On a different note, Justice Kumar questioned why the NFSU has used the word 'pandrive' throughout the report and remarked that if this is the quality of reports from a central forensic lab, then some introspection is required.

"One thing we notice is, this is supposed to be a national university, and they say 'pandrive' and not 'pendrive'. I had a doubt whether I was under a misapprehension all these years, so I looked it up to see whether it's a pendrive or a pandrive. It is a pendrive. They don't know it's a pendrive? They call it a pandrive not once but several times. If this is the quality of our people then, the national universities, perhaps, need to do a little introspection," he remarked.

The Court shared a copy of the report with the petitioner as well as the Union. It asked Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati to ascertain why it was not possible for the NFSU to undertake a comparison.

ASG Bhati submitted that in the intial orders passed by the Court, it did not foreclose the possibility of sending this matter to the High Court under Article 226. She stated that the petitioner is engaging in roving inquiry and the Court should explore sending the matter to the High Court.

But Justice Kumar stated that the Court can't foreclose the matter as it has received no answer to the queries or the directions it has passed.

He also stated: "In the first order, I was sitting with the chief justice, and this order was passed where the CSFL was asked to examine the audio clips which have been provided. The very first order itself required to provide evidence of authenticity of the clip, and we are still not getting an answer. Guwahati say we can't do anything, then we sent to Gujarat University and again same issue. When that issue was opened at the initial stage, we need to have some answer, and we can't foreclose the issue without getting clear answer."

When ASG Bhati said there are answers, but they are not to the liking of the petitioner, Justice Kumar responded that the Court has received no answer on the audio matching at all. 

Bhushan pointed out that the NFSU, in an earlier report, had said that even the audio of the former chief minister taken from Doordarshan is altered and can't be matched. To this, Justice Kumar asked ASG to explore if Biren Singh could visit the university and give an audio directly. 

"According to this report, the Doordarshan recordings are also [not determinative], then its better to ask him to come there and record his voice," Justice Kumar said.

The Court has passed an order asking ASG to ascertain whether the University stands by its earlier reports that the audio taken from Doorshadhan was also tampered and whether it would require a direct voice recording. It has also asked the petitioner to explore if original audio can be submitted.