‘PTR audio clip on CM family’: SC bins ‘bogus’ plea seeking inquiry
Bench says court can’t be turned into political platform, questions petitioner on evidence
Published: 08th August 2023 07:35 AM | Last Updated: 08th August 2023 07:35 AM | A+A A-
FILE - Image of the Supreme Court of India, used for representational purposes only. (Photo | PTI)
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking judicial inquiry into the alleged voice clips of Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, where he had allegedly passed remarks regarding the wealth of Chief Minister MK Stalin’s family.
Calling the petition “bogus”, a bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra said that courts cannot be made into political platforms and cannot go behind the political decisions relating to changing of portfolios of ministers.
“This is an absolutely bogus petition. There is allegedly an audio clip in terms of which the former finance minister refers to the family of the CM. This has no evidentiary value. This is hearsay at best,” the CJI remarked.
Questioning the actionable material, based on which the petitioner Pranesh Rajamanickam, appearing as party-in-person was seeking the probe, the CJI said, “What is the actionable material you have? On the basis of some audio clip, do you want us to have a commission of inquiry? Article 32 petition for investigating an audio clip? We won’t use this as a political platform. Dismissed.”
The court also refused to pass an order for sending the audio clips to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory. Notably, in April, Thiaga Rajan called the audio clip fabricated and explained the manner in which artificial intelligence can create deep fake content.
“If such authentic-looking videos can be machine-generated, imagine what can be done with audio files. I strongly and specifically deny I have said to any individual personally or on the phone at any point of time what is contained in the audio clip being circulated on social media since yesterday, the source of which nobody accepts ownership for,” he had said in a video message.
