Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 18 (IANS) Senior apex court counsel Shanti Bhushan Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking initiation of suo motu contempt proceedings against Rajya Sabha member and expelled Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh for “authoring a fabricated CD” that casts aspersions on him and “interferes with the administration of justice”.

“The alleged contents of the CD have been fabricated with a malicious intention to interfere with the administration of justice as it tries to create an impression that a particular bench of the apex court” could be managed by Prashant Bhushan - the son of the petitioner Shanti Bhushan. The CD also names the judge who was sought to be managed.

The tape has the voice allegedly of Shanti Bhushan speaking to Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh saying a judge could be ‘fixed’ for Rs.4 crore and his son Prashant Bhushan was good in managing things. Shanti Bhushan has denied ever meeting Amar Singh.

The petition has sought direction for probe into the matter by a special investigation team to find out who all are involved in fabrication of the CD or its dissemination and initiation of contempt proceedings against all found involved in the conspiracy and punishing them for contempt of court.

“The object behind fabricating the said CD is quite sinister as the attempt is apparently to derail the hearing of all important cases being/have been argued by the informant’s (Shanti Bhushan’s) son (Prashant Bhushan) before that particular bench” of the apex court, the petition said.

It may be recalled that the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly have reserved their verdict on the petition by Amar Singh seeking to restrain media from publishing the transcripts of unauthorised tapped telephonic conversation of Singh and on the petition seeking cancellation of licences of the telecom operators in 2G scam.

In the Amar Singh tape petition, Prashant Bhushan has moved the court seeking that they be made public so that people could know how things were being manipulated in decision making. In the 2G petition Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, has sought cancellation of (2G) licences which were allegedly allocated by bending rules and ignoring first come first serve policy.

The attempt, the petition pointed out seems to be to try and make the judge recuse himself from the case by adding his name and suggesting that Prashant Bhushan is on very good terms with the judge and is in a position to influence him.

“This is totally false and scurrilous suggestion, is a clear attempt to embarrass the judge and to interfere with the administration of justice,” the petition said.

The fact that the CD is totally fabricated has become apparent from the forensic report of two different renowned labs. One of them is the Truth Lab Hyderabad which is headed by the former director of the CFSL S.R. Singh. The advisory committee of the organization is chaired by former Chief Justice of India Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah.

The Truth Lab has also opined that some parts of the conversation are lifted from an earlier conversation between Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav, which is part of a CD which has already been filed since 2006 and is part of the court record in the Amar Singh Tapes case.

The other report is by a renowned international expert in the field namely George Papcun of Sound Evidence, USA who has been employed by Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Aerospace Corporation and the University of California Phonetics Laboratory. George Papcun, PhD, has opined that the CD has “discontinuities” which show that “the recording is not an authentic and valid representation of an original conversation”.