An audio clip gone viral on WhatsApp is attributed to senior supreme court lawyer Harish Salve. The five-minute audio discredits the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) held across the nation between December 2019 and February 2020. The audio calls the protestors "crooks" and "traitors". The clip also states that the "likes of Rahul Gandhi and Asaduddin Owaisi would have no future" without the protestors.

Fact-check

While listening to the audio clip we noticed that at the 1:34 mark, the person revealed his identity as Suresh Kochattil. We look up this name and found that a LinkedIn profile which says he is the chief operating officer (COO) at Janam TV, a Malayalam language news channel. We also found a Facebook profile with the same name that includes a link to Jaman TV website.

Last year in August, Kochattil posted a clarification about the audio clip. He wrote, "An old audio clip of mine is going viral on WhatsApp. It was recorded and released during the anti CAA agitation. Over the last few days, many friends have called/messaged me to confirm it was me and not Harish Salve, as many claimed. If you listen to it closely, at 1:34, I mention by name. Hope this clears the confusion." He further added, "A few months ago, a video of mine got credited to Justice Srikrishna, so much so that he had to issue a clarification that it was not him. I hope Harish Salve ji is not forced to undergo this trouble."

https://www.facebook.com/KochattilSuresh/videos/10157551614748848

Last year in March, Supreme Court advocate Harish Salve shared his opinions on CAA to Moneycontrol, "I fail to understand how a law which is designed to confer the benefit on an identified class of persons, and which identification is based on a rational criterion, can be condemned as being discriminatory on the ground that the legislation could have created a wider class…" which was also opined in the audio clip.

Salve confirmed to Alt News that viral audio has not been not recorded by him.

An audio clip recorded by Janam TV COO Suresh Kochattil was reshared on WhatsApp in the name of Supreme Court advocate Harish Salve. Last year in April, similar clip on migrant labourers was falsely attributed to Salve.