SC directs forensic examination of full audio clip allegedly linking Manipur violence to ex-CM

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the National Forensic Sciences University to examine an audio clip allegedly linking former Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh to the ethnic violence in the state, PTI reported.

The order was issued by Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran after the petitioners, the Kuki Organization for Human Rights Trust, said that they were placing the complete audio clip on record, which was more than two hours long.

The bench directed the forensic laboratory in Gujarat to analyse the recording and compare the voice sample in it with that of Biren Singh, the news agency reported.

In the recordings believed to be from 2023, a voice purported to be that of Biren Singh is heard taking credit for “how and why the conflict started”, bragging that he had defied Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s order against the use of “bombs” in the conflict and shielding from arrest persons who snatched thousands of weapons from the state police armouries.

At least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in May 2023. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024 and 2025.

Biren Singh had stepped down as the chief minister in February 2025 amid allegations from Kuki-Zomi-Hmar groups that his response to the violence had been partisan and that he had stoked majoritarianism.

After he resigned, Manipur was under the President’s Rule for a year until Yumnam Khemchand Singh became the chief minister on February 4.

The case so far

In February 2025, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioner, told the court that the tapes had been examined by the independent forensic laboratory Truth Labs.

The laboratory had confirmed with 93% certainty that the voice heard in the recordings was that of the chief minister, he had said.

At the time, the court had passed an order seeking a report from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Assam’s Guwahati on the audio clip in a sealed cover, Live Law reported. In May 2025, it expressed dissatisfaction with this report and asked for a new one.

In August, the court directed that the audio clips be sent for a fresh forensic examination to the National Forensic Science University laboratory to verify their authenticity.

The court had said at the time that a fresh examination would help clarify two aspects: whether the audio clips were modified, edited or tampered with in any manner and whether the voice in the disputed clips matched the admitted audio sample, with a clear finding on whether the same person is speaking in all the recordings.

The laboratory had been asked to submit its report directly to the court in a sealed cover.

However, the Kuki Organization for Human Rights Trust in November stated that the Manipur Police had forwarded only short and edited clips to the laboratory in Gujarat instead of the complete 48-minute recording.

The petitioners made the allegation in an affidavit responding to a report submitted by the laboratory in October, which claimed that the clips had been tampered with and were not scientifically fit to compare the voice.

The laboratory also told the court that it could not provide an opinion on whether the voice in the clips is that of Singh.

In December, the court asked the state government why the full audio clip had not been sent to the National Forensic Science University for examination, adding that it was a “little disturbed” by the affidavit filed by the petitioners.

A month later, the court ordered the forensic examination of the 48-minute recording and directed that the entire available leaked audio be forwarded to the forensic laboratory, PTI reported.

It also directed the laboratory to expedite the process and submit the final report in a sealed cover, adding that the audio clips in question may be examined to determine whether they were modified, edited or tampered with in any manner.

On Thursday, the bench noted Bhushan as having submitted that the entire audio clip had been copied onto a pen drive from the original device by the whistleblower, Live Law reported.

This came after the court asked Bhushan to check whether the whistleblower could provide the first generation copy of the entire clip for forensic analysis.

“The said pen drive, being the first copy of the original, shall be furnished to the other side, to be forwarded to the NFSU for comparison with the admitted voice recordings of the individual concerned,” the bench said.