In a recent judgment delivered by a three judge bench of the Supreme Court comprising of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud, held that for the purpose of voice identification in a criminal case wherein sting operation was an integral component, it shall not be necessary to use the exact sentences from the inculpatory text. To strike a balance between the investigating agency and the accused persons, it would be enough if the words used in the alleged conversation are used for the purpose of voice samplings, without using the exact sentence per se.
This came to be decided in the case of Sudhir Chaudhary etc. etc. v. State (NCT of Delhi), wherein the accused a famous TV anchor was caught in a controversy by virtue of a sting operation, wherein it was alleged that a sum of money was demanded by him, to refrain from telecasting programmes on a television channel pertaining to the alleged involvement of a corporate entity in a wrongful activity in the allocation of coal blocks.
The investigating agency applied to the Court seeking consent of the accused(s) for obtaining their voice samples at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, CBI (CFSL-CBI) for the purpose of comparing it with a recording which had been made in the course of a sting operation. The controversy arose when the accused persons were made to read the exact same lines which were alleged to have been said during the recording of the sting operation.
The accused(s) objected to the use of inculpatory statements in the voice sampling test and asked for a court to monitor the investigation. The lower court rejected the plea of the accused(s) and held that once consent for voice sampling has been given, they have to abide by the investigating officers and cannot give instructions to them. The High Court rejected the plea of the accused(s) that the order to furnish voice samples are not in violation of Article 20(3) of the Constitution.
The appeal came up before the Supreme Court, it was urged on behalf of the accused that the investigation and the process of sampling must be fair and reasonable in accordance with Article 21 of the Constitution. The Court observed as follows:
“That being the position, the only surviving issue for this Court is to ensure that the underlying process for drawing the voice samples is fair and reasonable, having due regard to the mandate of Article 21. On the one hand, it is not open to the accused to dictate the course of investigation. Hence, we do not find substance in the submission that the text which is to be read by the Appellants in the course of drawing their voice samples should contain no part of the inculpatory words which are a part of the disputed conversation. A commonality of words is necessary to facilitate a spectrographic examination.”
The Court further observed:
“We are of the view that the aforesaid directions which have been issued by this Court would allay the apprehension of the Appellants in regard to the fairness of the process involved in drawing the voice sample. Our directions ensure that the text which the Appellants would be called upon to read out for the purpose of drawing their voice samples will not have sentences from the inculpatory text. Similarly, permitting the text to contain words drawn from the disputed conversation would meet the legitimate concern of the investigating authorities for making a fair comparison.”
Thus the Court taking a very balanced approach ordered that for the purpose of voice sampling of the accused person, by the investigating agencies, the sample tests shall not contain sentences from the inculpatory text, however, it shall contain words from the alleged conversation so as to aid the investigating agencies to reach a logical conclusion.
Read the full judgment:
