No Need to Protect Those Involved in Wrongdoing, Says SC in Manipur Tapes Hearing

New Delhi: Hearing the Manipur audio tapes case today (May 5), the Supreme Court said that there is no need to protect any person if they are found to have been involved in wrongdoing in relation to the Kuki-Meitei ethnic violence in the north-eastern state.

The two-member bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar made the remark after solicitor general (SG) Tushar Mehta questioned the credibility of the petitioner, the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust (KOHUR), reported Bar and Bench.

KOHUR had petitioned the apex court to probe the audio tapes, in which a voice sounding like then-state chief minister N. Biren Singh could be heard claiming to be behind the breakout of ethnic violence.

In November 2024, the Supreme Court agreed to examine the tapes.

Prior to it, in September 2024, in public interest, The Wire had published those tapes after they were accepted by the judicial commission on the Manipur violence set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Saturday marked the second year of the violence in Manipur, which has caused the death of at least 250 people and injured many, while also displacing over 50,000 people from both communities, most of whom are still taking shelter in various relief camps across the border state.

Biren Singh’s office had claimed that the audio tapes were not authentic and threatened action against media organisations and others using them.

But a highly reputed private lab, the Truth Lab, which was approached by the petitioner to check the tapes’ authenticity based on a Supreme Court order, had stated that there was a “93%” similarity between the voice in the tapes and Biren Singh’s voice as heard in authentic voice samples submitted to it for examination.

Thereafter, on the SG’s plea to also authenticate the tapes by a government-run lab, the apex court had asked him to get them examined by the Union Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) and submit its report to the court in a sealed cover.

At the last hearing on April 17, the government sought additional time as the SG was unavailable that day to submit the report. The SG was busy with the ongoing Waqf (Amendment) Act hearing.

The counsel appearing for the government, however, had told the court that the report was ready.

Today, the report was submitted to the bench in a sealed cover. According to a LiveLaw report, the SG told the court, “Let the investigation go on, rather than escalating the situation any further. We have the sealed cover FSL report, high court can also examine it. Peace is prevailing.”

KOHUR counsel Prashant Bhushan referred to the prayer in the petition for a court-monitored investigation by a special investigation team into the tapes.

After reading the report, the court said, “Mr Mehta, you have to talk to the offices, please talk to the offices … what is this FSL report?”

When the SG said he had not examined the report’s contents, CJI Khanna responded: “Read the content and then talk to the offices, please examine and bring a fresh report.”

The court asked the government to submit a fresh FSL report. “Relist on the week commencing July 21,” the CJI was quoted as saying.

Upon being asked about the SG’s remark in court about KOHUR’s credibility, its chairman Benjamin Mate refused to make a comment to The Wire but said: “We have trust in the Supreme Court that we will finally get justice.”

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