YEDLA CHENCU Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In all these cases, public servants, who are involved in trap cases, are objecting to giving voice samples for comparing the voice samples with conversations recorded between these public servants and the persons, who are said to have given bribes.

(2.) When petitions had been filed before the trial Courts for obtaining such voice samples, objections had been taken on the ground that insisting of such voice samples would be violative of Article 20(2) of the Constitution of India. A further ground was that the said recorded conversations were stored in a computer and thereafter put on Compact Disks (C.Ds) and would amount to computer output under Section 65 B of the Evidence Act. The said Compact Disks cannot be produced as evidence unless a certificate under Section 65 B is produced. As no such certificates have been produced, the said Compact Disks are inadmissible as evidence and consequently the question of comparing the voices in the said Compact Disks with a voice sample of the petitioners would not arise and therefore, there is no need for taking voice samples. These objections had been rejected by the trial Courts resulting in the present petitions being filed.

(3.) Sri V.Siva Prasad Reddy, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that even though the issue of violation of Article 20(2) of the Constitution of India does not survive any more, the question of whether taking voice samples is permissible in view of the fact that the prosecution has not produce a certificate under Section 65 B of the Evidence Act still remains.