New Delhi

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed that the complete 48-minute audio recording, which a petition claims implicates former Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh in the 2023 ethnic violence, be subjected to a forensic examination.

A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran ordered that the entire leaked audio material, along with admitted voice samples of the former chief minister, be sent to the National Forensic Science University (NFSU), Gandhinagar, for detailed forensic analysis.

The court clarified that all voice recordings provided by the petitioner’s counsel to the respondents must be included in the material forwarded to the forensic body. It further instructed the NFSU to complete the examination at the earliest and submit its final findings to the court in a sealed cover.

During the brief hearing, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioner Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust (KOHUR), informed the bench that the matter had been listed multiple times, nearly ten hearings so far. He submitted that the petition already contained a transcript of the full 48-minute conversation and that the complete audio recording had been supplied.

Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing on behalf of the Manipur government, told the court that the state had received the full audio recording only after the previous hearing.

The court’s order follows observations made on December 15 last year, when the bench had questioned why the entire leaked audio had not been sent for forensic examination. At the time, the court expressed concern over an affidavit filed by the petitioners on November 20, 2025, which indicated that only selected portions of the audio had been forwarded for analysis.

Earlier, the NFSU had reportedly stated that the leaked audio clips were “tampered with,” effectively ruling out a reliable forensic voice comparison. On November 3, the apex court had taken note of the NFSU’s assessment that the clips showed signs of manipulation.

According to the forensic report referenced by the court, the recordings displayed indications of editing and tampering, rendering them unsuitable for scientific voice matching. However, Bhushan countered this by citing a separate forensic opinion, which concluded that at least one of the recordings was not edited.

The Supreme Court has been monitoring the issue closely. On May 5 last year, it examined a forensic report related to the authenticity of the audio clips and directed the Manipur government to submit a fresh status report on the investigation. The court had also earlier sought a sealed forensic report from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) on the same issue.

The petition before the court was filed by KOHUR, which has sought the constitution of an independent special investigation team (SIT) to probe the allegations arising from the leaked audio recordings.

N Biren Singh resigned as Manipur’s chief minister on February 9 last year amid internal dissent within the ruling BJP and mounting pressure over the handling of the ethnic violence.

The violence, which erupted in May 2023 between the Meitei community of the Imphal valley and the Kuki communities from the surrounding hill districts, has claimed more than 260 lives and displaced thousands. The unrest was triggered after a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was held in the hill areas to protest a Manipur High Court order supporting the Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

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Bhushan has argued before the court that the recorded conversation prima facie points to the involvement and complicity of state authorities in the violence against the Kuki-Zo community. The plea further alleges that Singh played a key role in instigating, coordinating and overseeing large-scale killings, destruction of property and other acts of violence in Kuki-dominated regions of Manipur.