National
Did he give or take money?
By J. Venkatesan
NEW DELHI, JAN. 3. The proceedings of the Venkataswami Commission today took a new turn with an expert produced by the former BJP president, Bangaru Laxman, demonstrating before the panel as to how the portions in the Tehelka tapes involving Mr. Laxman had been `doctored' and `tampered' by the portal.
The Commission and others were stunned when Mr. Laxman (who was seen in the Tehelka tapes as receiving a wad of currency notes in the `Operation West End') was shown as actually handing over the currency notes to another person.
The technical expert, G.S. Kartic, a film maker from Hyderabad, also deposed before the Commission that doctoring and manipulation was possible even in the `camera originals'. To a question from Mr. Justice Venkataswami, he explained that irrespective of what format the film had been captured, it could be put back on any other format and it could still be claimed as `camera originals'.
Therefore, Mr. Kartic said that it could not be construed that the Hi8 tapes, which the portal had claimed to be `camera originals', need not be `originals' as they could be even `doctored' or `tampered' ones. It might be recalled that the Commission had earlier rejected the expert evidence of Milin Kapoor, produced by the Samata Party leader, Jaya Jaitley, and held that the tapes in its possession were camera originals in which doctoring was not feasible. Viewed in this context, the deposition of Mr. Kartic has given a new dimension to the whole proceedings of the Commission.
Mr. Kartic, demonstrated to the Commission with `zoom' and `slow motion' techniques, various scenes involving Mr. Laxman and others that in the 41/2 hours of the Tehelka tapes the audio track had been independently adjusted without touching the video track and that there was obvious `non-sync' between the audio and video.
Giving a technical explanation, Mr. Kartic said, ``in editing this mistake amounts to blasphemy...This can only happen when the video and audio tracks are deliberately unlocked and any one of them, either the video or the audio track has been independently manipulated or worked upon''.
Even as Mr. Kartic was explaining that he could demonstrate with the help of one of the unedited tapes in the possession of the Commission as to how manipulation could be done, the counsel for Mr. Laxman requested the Commission to part with one of the tapes but Mr. Justice Venkataswami flatly refused to do so. The cross examination of Mr. Kartic will continue tomorrow.
Deposition by U.K.-based expert
Earlier, Christopher Martin Frederick Mills, a U.K.- based expert produced by Ms. Jaya Jaitley told the Commission that in the 17-minute tape (the portions involving Ms. Jaitley) which he had examined for five days along with the transcripts, he could find out three instances ``where the audio information is interrupted whilst the video information appears continuous''.
Mr. Mills also told the Commission that it was technically possible to record audio and video separately in a digital system from a Hi8 recording and the individual components could then be edited before being re-assembled as a product for onward transmission.
He said in his view the `M.PEG1 copy material', which he had examined indicated that manipulation of the audio information had been undertaken separately from the video information, during the post-production process. Mr. Mills submitted that the fundamental issue was that without examining the `original material', it must not be concluded by the Commission that the `end product' represented the `true version' of the events.
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