Amar Singh files police complaint against Bhushans

Amar Singh on Monday hit back at the father-son duo of Shanti and Prashant Bhushan on the alleged fake CD episode and lodged a police complaint against them for distributing discs containing 'tampered' conversations despite a Supreme Court stay.

At a hurriedly called press conference in New Delhi after learning that lawyer Prashant Bhushan had filed a criminal contempt petition against him in the Supreme court for releasing an audio tape maligning the image of Shanti Bhushan and his son Prashant, Amar Singh denied any role in release of the illegal tape.

"I am afraid of the court. The Bhushans had made allegations against the present Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia and former chief justice of India K G Balakrishnan. They made allegations against former law and justice minister H R Bhardwaj. Before they started filing public interest litigations, their annual income was Rs 10 crore but after they started filing PILs they are now worth Rs 176 crore," he claimed.

A day after Prashant Bhushan claimed "prima facie" Amar Singh could be involved in the controversial CD purportedly containing a conversation between senior Bhushan, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Singh, Amar Singh went to the IP Estate Police Station in New Delhi to file a complaint against the Bhushans.

In his two-page complaint, 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.

"In the original CD containing the illegally tapped conversation, Shanti Bhushan states that his son Prashant Bhushan files PILs to extort money as also imputes scandalous allegations about the judiciary as also the erstwhile Law Minister of India," Singh claimed in the complaint.

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 him and Mulayam Singh Yadav".

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.

He sought to defend Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh for questioning a property purchased by the Bhushans in Allahabad.

Singh claimed that the property worth Rs 25 crore was bought for a mere Rs one lakh. The Bhushans have denied the charge and had claimed that they had paid stamp duty much higher than what the government had claimed.

Recalling a reported statement of Gandhian Anna Hazare that people should step down from their posts if an allegation is made, he said "more than mere allegations" have been made against the Bhushans.  He hinted that the two should quit the Joint Drafting Committee formed to prepare the Lokpal Bill.

Additional Inputs: PTI