PIL in high court seeks voice forensic test in Punjab IPS officer misconduct case; hearing on May 5
The petitioner, Nikhil Saraf, a Supreme Court lawyer, filed the PIL after the Punjab State Commission for Women and the state Home Department didn't take any action with regard to his earlier representations regarding the matter.
The Police Complaints Authority had also dismissed the matter on technical grounds.
Saraf is represented by advocate Amit Sharma in the case. The petition requests a scientific analysis of audio clips submitted on a USB drive to determine whether the voice is genuine or artificially generated. It also seeks to compare the voice with that of an IPS officer.
Two audio clips that circulated in April are at the centre of the petition. In one, a male voice is allegedly heard negotiating paid sex. In another, the same voice appears to instruct a woman to share an explicit image. The petitioner claims the voice matches that of the police officer.
The plea alleges the matter has not been addressed by state institutions. It also refers to a gag order issued by a district magistrate, stating that the order was passed without verifying the authenticity of the clips.
The high court has already stayed the gag order in a separate case. Meanwhile, a former woman constable arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act was granted bail by a Bathinda court on Thursday. Media reports suggest her case is related to the context of the petition.
The petition seeks a direction to the Director General of Police to disclose the name, rank, and current posting of the officer allegedly named by the former woman constable.
The petitioner argues that the case highlights broader issues of institutional accountability. Past judicial observations regarding other cases involving police and administrative lapses are also cited in the petition.
The petition requests the court to order a certified forensic examination of the recordings and seeks further directions based on the outcome of the analysis.
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