Supreme Court orders forensic test of ex-Manipur CM Biren Singh's entire 48-minute audio clip

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that the entire 48-minute audio recording clip allegedly implicating former Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh in the 2023 ethnic violence, along with his admitted voice samples, should be forwarded to the National Forensic Science University (NFSU) Gandhinagar, for forensic examination.

The court asked the NFSU to expedite the process and furnish its report in a sealed cover.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran issued the order on a plea by Kuki Organization for Human Rights Trust (KOHUR) for a court-monitored investigation into certain alleged leaked audio clips which allegedly implicate former Manipur CM, Singh for instigating the ethnic violence in the state.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner KOHUR, said the matter has been listed here as many as ten times and the state government counsel had appeared on each occasion.

"The petition itself contained the transcript of the full 48-minute conversation and that the audio had been supplied. The authorities were aware of the complete recording," he submitted.

The plea claimed that the audio tapes, shared by an anonymous whistleblower, contained conversations held by the former Chief Minister “establishing complicity of the highest functionary and others in ethnic violence in the State of Manipur”.

In one of the hearings earlier, the NFSL Gandhinagar, had informed the court that the audio purportedly relating to recordings were tampered with and not scientifically fit for voice comparison.

"As the said audio is tampered with, so thereby, no opinion on similarity or dissimilarity of the speakers could be offered," the NFSL said.

Singh resigned as the chief minister of Manipur on February 9, 2025 amid rumblings within the state BJP and growing demands for a change in leadership.

Over 260 people were killed and thousands displaced since the ethnic violence broke out between the Imphal valley-based Meitei and neighbouring hills-based Kuki communities in May 2023.

The clashes began after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against an order of the Manipur High Court on the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.