Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 17 (IANS) Lawyer Prashant Bhushan Sunday said the CD allegedly containing a conversation between Lokpal Bill panel co-chair Shanti Bhushan and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh was doctored to derail the civil society movement against graft and the proceedings of two important Supreme Court cases.

“The CD is fabricated as we have got this CD subjected to forensic examination from two of the topmost forensic labs specialising in audio analysing,” Prashant Bhushan, who is also a member of the Lokpal bill drafting committee and son of Shanti Bhushan, told reporters here.

“This confirms that though the voice appears to be genuine, the CD appears to splice different conversations obtained from different places and parts and put together in a purported conversation,” he added.

“There was a clear conspiracy on the part of some people which appears having blessings of many powerful people in this country not only to discredit me and my father and civil society but to derail judicial proceedings in two important cases pending judgment in the apex court,” he said.

Bhushan said Amar Singh speaks in reference to a Supreme Court judge who is the presiding judge dealing with two extremely important cases in which the hearing has been concluded and judgment reserved.

“The first is the Amar Singh tapes case itself where we had filed an application that the tapes should not be restricted and released to the media because they show evidence of all kinds of conspiracies between Amar Singh and various other people and business people.”

“The other case is the 2G spectrum scam case where judgment has been reserved by this bench on petition filed by me for cancelling all the licences.

“This CD, by purporting to suggest that I can influence the judge, appears to be an attempt to derail judicial proceedings and interfere with judicial proceedings in that case, which to my mind amounts to contempt of court,” he said.

The CD was tested by an expert in acoustics phonetics in the US and by another in the Truth laboratory headquartered in Hyderabad, which is headed by a former director of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL).

“The most interesting finding of the testing is that the entire portion of what Mulayam Singh said in the purported conversation with Amar Singh has been bodily lifted from a conversation between Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh that took place in Feb 2006 and has been sliced and inserted (into the present CD),” he said.

“There are political forces and corporate forces behind this in an attempt to derail proceedings in cancellation of 2G cases. There were at least six clear signs of doctoring gaps or electronic editing in my father’s conversation.

“These are different conversations recorded at different times and put together in a digital audio file to make it one conversation,” he said.

Bhushan said the conspiracy to fabricate the CD to disseminate it in the media clearly involved a large number of people.

The manner in which some sections of the media have reported that they verified the forensic authenticity of the tapes and found them to be genuine without reporting which lab conducted the tests seems to suggest that some people and sections of the media are also involved in the conspiracy, he added.

“It is a serious conspiracy involving several very serious criminal offences, that is forgery for defaming people and contempt of court,” Bhushan said.

“Since a large number of influential people appeared to be involved in the conspiracy, it is absolutely essential that one goes right to the bottom of the conspiracy to find who all were involved, whether they are involved in fabrication and are involved in malicious dissemination of the CD to the media,” he added.

Bhushan said they are going to file a contempt petition in the Supreme Court in the next one or two days.

“We hope the court will ensure a credible investigation is conducted,” he said.

RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal said the police do not want to investigate the case as there purpose is to keep the matter lingering in the media and to force Shanti Bhushan to resign from the Lokpal Bill panel.