New Delhi, Apr 18: In escalation of the war over alleged fake CD, Prashant Bhushan today filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court against Amar Singh who hit back filing a police complaint against the father-son duo for distributing “tampered” conversations defying a legal stay.
In the midst of the CD war, Home Minister P Chidambaram gave an assurance that a “free, fair and thorough” probe into the alleged fake CD.
The Minister said this was a “season of allegations” and he was glad that there was a growing recognition that reputation was also important.
Shanti Bhushan, whose son Prashant yesterday alleged that Singh had fabricated the CD implicating him in purported conversations with SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Singh, today moved the Supreme Court seeking contempt proceedings against Singh for the “fabrication”.
“The informant (Shanti Bhushan) is approaching this Court as one CD purportedly containing a completely fabricated conversation between the Informant, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh, which clearly cast aspersions on the judiciary, has been circulated among the media,” Shanti Bhushan's petition said.
Bhushan, a member of the Joint Drafting Committee on Lokpal Bill, wants his plea be placed before Chief Justice S H Kapadia for taking suo motu cognizance.
He has also filed forensic reports of two different laboratories, including the Truth Lab, Hyderabad, which is headed by a former Director of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory.
Bhushan sought a probe by a special investigation team to find out as to who all are the persons involved in the fabrication of the CD or its dissemination.
The petition said “the act of fabricating the CD and then sending it anonymously to various news channels and newspapers is a serious attempt to bring not only the informant but also the judiciary under cloud and needs to be taken serious cognizance of.”
In his two-page complaint with I P Estate Police Station, Singh claimed that despite a stay by the apex court, they had distributed the CD “containing illegally tapped and morphed/edited and tampered conversations of mine, which are presently the subject matter of a writ before the Supreme Court”.
He said the the CDs being “distributed” by the Bhushans were tampered/morphed/edited “possibly by Prashant Bhushan in order to portray the statements made by Shanti Bhushan in a better light to save his face”.
Singh claimed that the father and son have “apparently” made more than five different versions of the said conversation in order to dilute the original conversation.
While submitting a copy each of the alleged four different versions of the CD to the police, Singh demanded that they be sent to a reputed national laboratory to verify whether the conversation in the CDs is tampered or edited. Singh said he believed that the conversation was not only illegally tapped but has been tampered and morphed to “bring disrepute to Mulayam Singh and I”.
He also apprehended that some industrial houses and also some persons inimically inclined towards him are seeking to reap benefits from the discord arising from the conversations being made public.
At a press conference later, Singh said that the Bhushans were “habitual” contemnors as they had in the past attacked Chief Justices K G Balakrishnan and S H Kapadia and were now now making a song and dance filing a contempt petition against him.
He sought to defend Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh for questioning a property purchased by the Bhushans in Allahabad. PTI
