Harish Murali By Express News Service CHENNAI: In perhaps a first of its kind development, citing a recent Supreme Court judgment that empowered judicial magistrates to order a person to give a sample of his voice for investigation, a CBI special court here has given a green signal to carry out the procedure in a four-year-old bribery case. LS Sathyamurthy, XIII Additional Judge, Special Court for CBI cases, in his order citing the August 2 judgment of the Supreme Court in Ritesh Sinha Vs State of Uttar Pradesh, observed, “A Judicial Magistrate must be conceded the power to order a person to give a sample of his voice for the purpose of investigation of a crime. Such power has to be conferred on a magistrate by a process of judicial interpretation and in exercise of jurisdiction vested in this court under Article 142 of the Constitution of India.” The judge, in his order on a CBI petition, explained the characteristics of human voices sought for recording of voice samples of the accused to be analysed for comparison with the previously recorded voices in a scientific laboratory for investigation. According to the prosecution, P Gnanasambandam working as chief manager, process engineering and projects of Madras Fertilizers, Manali here, allegedly colluded with KV Reddeppa, sales coordinator of Hi Tech Airpower Ltd and Y Sreenivasulu, managing director of the company while awarding the tender for purchasing 227 Reverse Osmosis membranes, worth `78 lakhs. The chargesheet said P anansambandam’s phones along with phones of two other accused were all tapped by seeking necessary permission from the competent authority through which it was found that several lakh rupees were transacted by the duo to bribe the chief manager of the company in procuring the tender. The CBI submitted all records of e-mail correspondences, signatures to the court and sought permission to cross check the voice samples. The case despite being registered in 2015 was pending before the court for long time. The Call Detail Records during 2014- 15 is all stored in the voice logger system of CBI, which will now be taken up for examination. The defence argued that CBI had already completed investigation and also submitted the final report, and the present petition cannot be entertained by the court. However, the court citing the recent judgment by Supreme Court in such cases permitted the CBI to take voice samples. The court adjourned the case to August 28.

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