New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, directed a forensic examination of a 48-minute audio recording in which a petition alleges that former Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh had a role in the 2023 ethnic violence. The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K. Vinod Chandran.
During the hearing, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioner, the ‘Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust’, argued before the bench that the matter had been listed nearly 10 times and the petition itself included a transcript of the entire 48-minute conversation. He stated that the audio had already been made available.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, representing the Manipur government, informed the court that the state government had received the complete recording only after the previous hearing. After hearing arguments from both sides, the bench ordered that the audio recording be sent to the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), Gandhinagar, for forensic examination.
The bench ordered, “The entire 48-minute audio of the relevant conversation, along with a certified voice recording of the former Chief Minister of Manipur, is available… All voice recordings handed over to the respondents by the petitioner’s counsel shall also be included and sent to the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), Gandhinagar.” The bench also directed the National Forensic Sciences University to expedite the process and submit the final report in a sealed envelope.
On December 15 last year, the apex court had questioned why all the available leaked audio clips had not been sent for forensic examination. In December, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Alok Aradhe had remarked that the court was “a little disturbed” by the affidavit filed by the petitioners on November 20 in the case. The bench questioned, “When the entire tape was available with you, the complete tape should have been sent to NFSU (National Forensic Sciences University, Gujarat). Why did they send only this limited portion?” The bench was hearing a petition filed by the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust (KOHUR), which sought an independent SIT (Special Investigation Team) probe into the matter.
Last year, on November 3, the Supreme Court had noted that NFSU had stated that the leaked audio clip had been “tampered with.” Meanwhile, amid growing dissent within the state BJP and demands for a change in leadership, N. Biren Singh resigned as the Chief Minister of Manipur on February 9, 2025.
