The Forensic Science Laboratory has confirmed as genuine the voice samples of Union minister Ananth Kumar and Karnataka BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa in a video clip, in which they allegedly discussed payment to the party high command, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Monday.
The Forensic Science Laboratory has confirmed as genuine the voice samples of Union minister Ananth Kumar and Karnataka BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa in a video clip, in which they allegedly discussed payment to the party high command, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Monday.
Kumar, however, dubbed the video "doctored" and the findings as "politically motivated".
Talking to reporters here, Siddaramaiah said police would take action on the FSL findings according to law and he would not issue any direction to them.
"According to FSL report, the voice in the CD is theirs (Ananth Kumar and Yeddyurappa's). Police will take action in accordance with law," said.
To another question on the probe, he said "No. I'm not giving direction to any institution or police. The police will act according to the law."
The FSL findings come amid allegations by the BJP that the Congress government in the state was misusing the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) under it to "fix" party leaders ahead of the assembly polls, due early next year.
Raising questions about the FSL report, Kumar said there is no question of "fearing or bowing" to it.
Quoting the FSL report, he said the voice comparison analysis has not been done in cyber forensic section and hence all the articles were transferred to the Physics section.
"That means without doing electronic cyber comparison they have given this report," he added.
"From day one I'm urging and my colleague and our leader Yeddyurappa has been urging that if at all you have to put forth the conversation between us, please put forth it in full, because it was not a conversation of few seconds." Highlighting speedy investigation in cases related to political opponents, he questioned as to how many complaints registered against Siddaramaiah and his cabinet colleagues in ACB are being fast tracked.
Expressing faith in the judiciary and the Constitution, Kumar called Siddaramaiah "dictatorial" and alleged that there is an "undeclared emergency" like situation in Karnataka.
The Congress in New Delhi had released a video clip of a purported conversation between Yeddyurappa and Kumar on February 12, claiming that both the leaders were admitting to having given money to their central leadership when in power.
In the video, the two leaders had also purportedly talked about the diary entry of a Congress legislator on alleged payment of Rs 1,000 crore to higher-ups in his party and keeping the issue alive politically.
The BJP in February had released contents of the dairy reportedly seized by the Income Tax officials during a raid in March 2016 on Congress MLC K Govindraj, who is said to be close to Siddaramaiah.
Govindraj had dismissed the charge, claiming the signatures were not his and were forged.
Thereafter, the Congress released the minute-long video clip of the purported conversation between Yeddyurappa and Kumar, which had happened on stage at a function on February 12 and was recorded by the microphone of a TV camera that was on.
Rubbishing Congress claims, Yeddyurappa and Kumar had then said only edited versions had been released and challenged the Congress and the TV channel to release the full video.
A Congress worker had filed a complaint on February 15 about the conversation on payment of money. The cyber crime had sent the video to FSL for analysis.
A city civil court in May had directed Yeddyurappa and Kumar to appear before the investigation officer and to give voice samples within a week.
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