Doctored CD backed by powerful people, says Prashant Bhushan

New Delhi: With his father under scrutiny, Prashant Bhushan, a member of the Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee, went public today. He claims the CD which allegedly has Shanti Bhushan sitting with Amar Singh and talking to Mulayam Singh over the phone, is fabricated.

Addressing the media this evening, Prashant Bhushan claimed that the CD controversy is a conspiracy to discredit the civil society members of the Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee, and the doctoring of the CD has the backing of some powerful people. (Watch)

Mr Bhushan also said that he sent the CD to two private labs which say that it is doctored.

Citing the alleged experts, Mr Bhushan said the CD is a cut-and-paste-job and there are six places where the it has been edited. He also said that parts of the Amar-Mulayam conversation are from the Amar Singh tapes, recorded before February 2006, and which Mr Bhushan submitted to the Supreme Court for an inquiry.

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Amar Singh insists he's met Shanti Bhushan, the Bhushans deny this and blame the former Samajwadi Party MP.

"It appears to me that the first part of this conversation where Amar Singh says that Shanti Bhushan ji mere pas baithe hain, but Shanti Bhushan has clearly said that he has never physically ever met Amar Singh. If this can be proved that this part of the conversation is edited, it can be proved that Amar Singh is involved in the doctoring of CD," said Prashant Bhushan.

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"If I am involved in making the CD, there cannot be a bigger lie than that. If I have made the CD, will I be so foolish to use my own voice in it?" said Amar Singh denying any involvement in the CD row.

Mr Bhushan does concede that his father's voice could be genuine. However, when asked to explain why his father was heard talking about four crores, he said, "Four crore my father must have said in some context. How can one remember in what context he said four crore? That four crore has been cut from somewhere and pasted because just before that word four crore, as per what Truth Lab report will tell you, there is a cut so the whole thing is a cut-and-paste job."

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Earlier in the day, Anna Hazare said the CD was bogus but stopped short of giving a clean-chit to Shanti Bhushan, the co-chair of the Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee.

"Shanti Bhushan will take the matter to court. If he is found guilty, he deserves to be punished but not if he is innocent. I can't give guarantees for anybody. I have just got to know Shanti Bhushan during the campaign. I can assure the public of good conduct on my part but not someone else's," said Mr Hazare.

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On Friday evening, media offices in Delhi received CDs delivered anonymously - these CDs are of a phone conversation purportedly between Mr Bhushan, Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, and Amar Singh, who was a senior Samajwadi Party leader himself till a high-volume falling out with Mr Yadav.

NDTV cannot authenticate whether the voices on the CD are indeed of these three men.  

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The conversation on the CD suggests that Shanti Bhushan and Amar Singh are together when Mr Singh calls Mr Yadav. A man, purportedly Mr Singh, hands the phone to a man - purportedly Mr Bhushan - who states a judge handling a case that Mr Singh and Mr Yadav refer to can be bribed. The voice that is purportedly Mr Bhushan's suggests that his son, Prashant, can help with this.