Hyderabad: The Narada sting tapes were sent to the Central forensic lab at Chandigarh, after the Hyderabad lab expressed its inability to analyse the genuineness of the recordings purportedly showing people resembling senior Trinamul Congress leaders taking money in return for doing favours for a company.
The Calcutta High Court noted that the Hyderabad lab failed to retrieve the recordings that were allegedly in the hard disc of a laptop.
Mr Mathew Samuel, editor of Narada News, had claimed that the alleged sting operation was recorded using an iPhone 6, transferred to a laptop and then to a pendrive, all of which had been sent by the high court to CFSL, Hyderabad for examination of the genuineness of the recordings. A report by CFSL, Hyderabad in this regard was submitted before the court in a sealed cover.
After going through the report, the Chief Justice said that according to the Hyderabad laboratory, it does not have the facility to analyse the exhibits in isolation.
The bench said that it had requested the court to send the devices and the video footage to CFSL, Hyderabad for determination of authenticity.
Accordingly, the court directed the three-member special committee (formed by the bench and headed by the registrar administration of the high court) to hand over the devices and a photocopy of the Hyderabad facility's report to CFSL, Chandigarh within 10 days.
The bench asked CFSL, Chandigarh to submit its report on the authenticity of the video footage within a month thereafter.
