Manipur violence: Supreme Court orders forensic examination of entire audio clip against former CM Biren Singh

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) in Gujarat to examine the entire audio recording allegedly linking former Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh to the Manipur ethnic violence [Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust v. Union of India]

A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Vinod Chandran directed the NFSU to analyse the recording and compare the voice in it with the admitted voice samples of Singh.

"Mr. Prashant Bhushan, learned counsel for the petitioner, states that the full audio clip of 2 hours and 36 minutes has been copied onto a pen drive from the original device. The said pen drive, being the first copy of the original, shall be furnished to the other side, to be forwarded to NFSU for comparison with the admitted voice recordings of the individual concerned,” the Court ordered.

The Court was hearing a petition filed by the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust. The plea was filed alleging that Singh had admitted in the audio recording that "he fuelled insurgency and protected those who looted the arms."

Today's direction was issued after advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that they are now willing to place on record the complete audio recording, which is about 2 hours and 26 minutes long.

Earlier, the petitioner had relied only a shorter clip of about 48 minutes. The NFSU had found this version to be a truncated part of a longer recording.

The audio clip has been under scrutiny for some time.

In August 2025, the NFSU in Gujarat was assigned the task of verifying the clip's genuineness and finding out whether the voice heard on the clip was that of Biren Singh.

The NFSU reported that the audio clip was an edited version, even if there was no deepfake or AI-based editing. It, therefore, expressed difficulties in giving a conclusive finding on whether the clip was authentic or whether the voice heard in the clip was that of Biren Singh.

During the last hearing, the Court too had raised concerns about the 48-minute clip, observing it appeared to be truncated or cut version of the original recording.

During today’s hearing, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, submitted that there was an indication of editing in the recording submitted earlier.

“The opinion of the NFSU is that there are no untampered portions. There are variations at different intervals across the entire length. The language that they use is that the recording is not original, and indications of editing, processing, and signal alterations are compromising the integrity of speech parameters. It is contrary to scientific principles. Untampered portions cannot be reliably identified. They have told us that controlled recordings were not given by the State or police..they have come from the petitioners,” Bhati said.

Bhushan, however, clarified that the recordings submitted by the petitioner were sourced from various platforms.

“No, the control recordings that we had given were not from Doordarshan; in fact, they were from various other YouTube channels. The Doordarshan recordings were obtained by them."

With the petitioner now offering the complete recording, the Court directed that a forensic examination be conducted. The matter will be taken up after six weeks.

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