NFSU's inability to verify ex-Manipur CM N Biren's audio clip irks SC

New Delhi: Irked over the inability of the central forensic laboratories to authenticate the audio clips allegedly implicating former Manipur CM N Biren Singh in the ethnic violence that took place in 2023, SC on Monday asked the Centre to explore whether Singh could visit the National Forensic Science University (NFSU), Gandhinagar, to give a voice sample.

The development took place during the hearing of a plea filed by the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights, which had submitted the clips recorded by a whistleblower.

Last February, SC had sought a report from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Guwahati, in a sealed cover. In May last year, SC had asked for a fresh FSL report after having expressed dissatisfaction with the report submitted by CFSL.


In August last year, SC directed NFSL to take up the exercise after the report of the CFSL indicated no clear findings. Later, in January this year, the court directed NFSU to examine the entire 48-minute clip and compare it with the admitted voice of Singh.

When the matter came up for hearing on Monday, the bench was informed that the audio recording allegedly implicating Singh had been edited. And it would be difficult to give a conclusive finding on whether the clip was authentic or whether the voice heard in the clip was that of Biren Singh.

A bench of justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran asked why no central laboratory is able to come up with conclusive findings. Perusing the report, Justice Kumar said that according to NFSL, the 48-minute audio has been tampered with. The report reads: "Due to the inherent technical limitation mentioned above, reliable forensic speaker comparison and matching could not be carried out on the sample..."

Representing Kuki Organisation for Human Rights, advocate Prashant Bhushan 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.

On a related note, justice Kumar asked why NFSU has used the word 'pan drive' in the report and remarked if this is the quality of reports from a central forensic lab, then some introspection is required. "It is a pen drive. They don't know it's a pen drive. They call it a 'pan drive' not once but several times."