The Supreme Court on Monday questioned the Union government about the accuracy of transcripts of videos relied upon to detain Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk under the National Security Act, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and PB Varale was hearing a petition filed by Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali Angmo, challenging the activist’s detention.

Wangchuk was detained on September 26 and taken to a jail in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur after protests in Leh demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. During the protests, demonstrators clashed with and threw stones at security personnel, injuring several of them. Four persons were killed in police firing.

The Union government has alleged that Wangchuk was the “chief provocateur” of the September 24 violence and that the protests in Leh came under control after the activist was taken into custody.

On Monday, the bench said it wanted the transcripts of Wangchuk’s statements after advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Angmo, submitted that several words attributed to the activist were never spoken by him.

“The tabular list you [the Union government] have filed, some of these things don’t even find a place in the detention order,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying. “There should be at least the correct transcript of what he [Wangchuk] says.”

The bench added: “There should not be a variance. If the speech is of three minutes and your transcription goes on for seven-eight minutes, there is certainly malice in that.”

Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj told the court that the transcription had been prepared by “a department” and that the government were not “experts” in the process, Bar and Bench reported.

The bench responded that in the age of artificial intelligence, the precision should be at least 98%.

It also directed the Jodhpur jail superintendent to produce before it, in a sealed cover, a pen drive that Union authorities had handed over to Wangchuk on September 29, Live Law reported.

This came after Sibal told the court that although the grounds of detention were supplied to Wangchuk that day, the four videos of his speeches referred to in the detention order were not present on the pen drive. He argued that the detention order was vitiated because the relevant material had not been properly supplied to the activist, Live Law reported.

At an earlier hearing, Nataraj had submitted that Wangchuk was shown all the videos and contents of the detention order and that the process was videographed, alleging that the activist was lying to the court. The bench, however, had at the time pointed out that Wangchuk had not endorsed that he was given an opportunity to watch the videos containing his alleged inflammatory speeches, the legal news outlet reported.

On January 13, Sibal told the court that Wangchuk cannot be seen in the videos relied upon by the authorities as grounds for his detention under the National Security Act.