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Court allows for voice samples of accused in scholarship scam

The CBI court in Chandigarh has allowed an application of CBI to obtain voice samples from CBI DSP Balbir Singh and Vishal Deep, the former Assistant Director of the Enforcement Directorate in Shimla, who have been arrested in connection with...
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The CBI court in Chandigarh has allowed an application of CBI to obtain voice samples from CBI DSP Balbir Singh and Vishal Deep, the former Assistant Director of the Enforcement Directorate in Shimla, who have been arrested in connection with an alleged scholarship scam in Himachal Pradesh.

CBI’s Public Prosecutor Narender Singh claimed that during the investigation and trap proceedings, the voices of the accused, including Vishal Deep and Balbir Singh, were recorded. To verify the identity of the voices in these recordings, the accused’s specimen voices are needed for forensic analysis. The prosecutor further stated that the accused had been informed of the need to provide their voice samples for a fair investigation, but they had refused to cooperate.

Balbir Singh had been the investigating officer in the scholarship scam case, which is now under CBI inquiry. However, the defence counsels of Vishal Deep contended that voice recordings should not be considered as evidence in this case, claiming that the request violated the accused's fundamental right to privacy.

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After considering the arguments, Special Judge Alka Malik said that since the case involves trap proceedings and recorded conversations, it is necessary to compare and analyse the voices using the accused’s sample. The court approved the CBI’s request but ordered that the written text read by the accused for the voice sample should not contain the same sentence order as in the disputed conversation, although the passage may include some of the same words.

The CBI has filed an FIR against Vishal Deep, based on complaints from directors of two educational institutions, under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Earlier, the CBI had also sought a voice sample from Vishal Deep.

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