Lab draws Narada blank

TT, Calcutta, June 24: The central forensic laboratory in Hyderabad has informed Calcutta High Court that it was unable to ascertain whether the Narada footage was authentic or not because of lack of proper equipment.

The report by the Hyderabad facility, which was submitted to the court recently, was placed in an envelop today before the chief justice-led division bench hearing a plea for a CBI probe into the sting.

The bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Arijit Banerjee did not comment on the state government-ordered probe into the "conspiracy" behind the Narada sting, which shows people resembling Trinamul leaders either accepting cash from the agent of a fictitious company or directing him to places or persons with whom the money should be deposited.

During the earlier hearing on June 20, Chief Justice Chellur had wondered how the government could order a probe into the sting when a case related to it was pending in the court. The court had on April 29 ordered that the Narada tapes be sent to the Hyderabad lab.

"The court did not comment on the government's probe today as the CFSL authorities in Hyderabad said they were not equipped to ascertain the authenticity of the tapes," a lawyer said.

The Hyderabad facility has recommended that the footage be sent to the central forensic lab in Chandigarh. The report added that the Chandigarh unit had the equipment to test whether the footage was genuine.

The bench directed a court-appointed committee to send the footage along with the report of the Hyderabad laboratory to the Chandigarh facility within 10 days. The court directed the Chandigarh laboratory to complete the test within a month of receiving the footage. The court fixed the matter for hearing after six weeks.

The three-member committee, headed by a registrar of the high court, had been constituted to collect an iPhone, a laptop and a pen drive containing the Narada footage from Mathew Samuel, the chief editor of the web portal Narada News that conducted the sting.

The division bench today asked the committee to hand over the three gadgets and the report submitted by the Hyderabad laboratory to the Chandigarh facility.

"After receiving the report and documents from the committee, the Chandigarh laboratory will have to complete its investigation and file a report before this court within a month," Chief Justice Chellur said.

Sting expenses

Sources in Calcutta police today said the expenses Narada News had incurred during the sting would be one of the key factors to be investigated.

"We have come across some anomalies in the expenditure that the news portal had incurred during the course of the sting operation in Calcutta. We sent an email to Mathew Samuel yesterday but have not received any reply yet," said Vishal Garg, joint commissioner of police, special task force.