National
Panel to consider supply of copies of unedited tapes
By J. Venkatesan
NEW DELHI, JAN. 15. The Justice Venkataswami Commission has yielded to the persistent demand of the Samata Party leader, Jaya Jaitley, for supply of copies of 100-hour unedited tapes in its possession and said it would consider such a request if it was found relevant.
The Commission today asked all the noticees to file applications by January 17 indicating copies of the relevant portions of the tapes that should be supplied to them. Their requests would be considered on January 18 and, ``if the Commission finds them relevant, then only it will direct the news portal to provide the noticees with the copies'', the Commission said.
It had earlier rejected the plea of Ms. Jaitley and others for supply of copies of unedited tapes on the ground that the enquiry pertained only with regard to the 4 1/2 hours of edited tapes and not the unedited tapes in its possession.
However, Ms. Jaitley, produced a U.K.-based technical expert as witness and while deposing before the Commission, he asserted that the unedited tapes should be sent for forensic examination. Later she filed an application that she should be supplied with copies of the unedited tapes so that she could defend herself. Other noticees had also argued before the Commission that the availability of unedited tapes was necessary as the portal had a copy of all the unedited tapes and it could use them for its arguments. It was in this context that the Commission had agreed to consider the request of the noticees for supply of copies of the unedited tapes provided such a request was relevant.
The Commission, however, rejected the portal's plea for display of unedited tapes to help its expert witness Anand Patwardhan, on the ground that no other expert witness had the opportunity to use unedited tapes to explain his argument.
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