High Court sent notice to Union Minister

Jaipur : Rajasthan High Court has issued a notice to Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat regarding the audio clip that went viral in the case related to horse-trading of MLAs, asking why ACB should not be allowed to take his voice sample. The single bench of Justice Ashutosh Kumar gave this order on the petition of the state government. The court had earlier issued notices to Gajendra Singh on June 22, but the notice was not served.

In the petition, Additional Advocate General Ghanshyam Singh Rathod told the court that the lower court had wrongly rejected the application of ACB. The basis on which the lower court has rejected the application of ACB regarding taking of voice sample, that provision is applicable in the case of taking of blood sample and handwriting sample, whereas this case is about taking of voice sample. The investigating agency can take voice samples even without arresting. The Supreme Court has also decided in the past in other cases that the research agency can take the voice sample of the person concerned if needed. In such a situation, by canceling the order of the lower courts, ACB should be allowed to take the voice sample of Gajendra Singh. Hearing this, the single bench has issued notice to Gajendra Singh and sought his reply.

It is noteworthy that in July 2020, three audio clips had gone viral, in which talks were being held regarding horse-trading of MLAs. It is alleged that this audio clip contains the voices of Union Ministers Gajendra Singh and Sanjay Jain. SOG had earlier registered a case on the basis of the audio clip. Later, FR was presented by SOG on the basis of jurisdiction. On the other hand, in the same case, ACB had also registered a case against Sanjay Jain, MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma and Gajendra Singh. ACB had also arrested Sanjay Jain in the case. After this, the lower court had given permission to ACB to take the voice sample of Sanjay Jain, but Sanjay had refused to give the sample. At the same time, the lower court had rejected the application submitted by ACB for taking the sample of Gajendra Singh. The revision presented against this was rejected by the ADJ Court, after which this order was challenged in the High Court by the State Government.