New Delhi: A London-based forensic science expert, who examined the Tehelka tapes and found them to be camera originals, today (June 23, 2004) told the Justice S N Phukan Commission inquiring into the controversy that the tapes did show that the camera had been turned on and off during recording and added this could amount to editing of the tapes.

"On and off is a kind of editing. The 100 hour tapes sent to me do have on and offs," Mathew James Cass, Associate Director for the Department of Electronic Evidence and Senior Video, Audio and Imaging Expert at the Bureau of Forensic Science, London, told the Commission here.

Cass had on Monday told the Commission in a 16-page report that the Tehelka tapes were camera originals and that he found no technical evidence of overdubbing. Cass had also examined the cameras purportedly used by the news portal.

Today, he said, he was not 100 per cent certain whether these were the cameras with which this recording was done, but added "in my opinion they are". He was answering a query by Samata Party leader Jaya Jaitley's counsel Nilay Dutta if he could vouch this without developing the tapes magnetically. Meanwhile, the Commission stirred a controversy today as it made public a fax and e-mail recieved from the Bureau of Forensic Sciences which said Tehelka.com and the India Correspondent of Guardian paper had contacted it to interview Cass.

"From what they said it would appear that a Minister has pre-empted Cass's evidence to the Commission and we have found reference to this on at least one news website," the communication said.