Bhushan CD was spliced – ToI --18.4.11

It’s An Attempt To Derail 2G & Amar Singh Cases: Prashant

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Two renowned forensic experts have established that the Shanti Bhushan tape where he purportedly asks for money to fix a case was fabricated, vindicating Prashant Bhushan and his colleagues in the ‘India Against Corruption’ campaign, who had maintained that the CD was spliced.
    Armed with reports from USbased acoustic phonetics expert George Papcun and S R Singh, former director of Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), who is now with Hyderabad-based Truth Labs, lawyer Prashant Bhushan told a crowded press conference that the findings had established that there was an attempt to malign the reputation of the Bhushans as well as the civil society activists fighting against corruption.
    He also said there was a conspiracy to derail verdicts given in two important cases — on the Amar Singh tapes and on the legality of 2G spectrum licences — in the Supreme Court in which hearing has been concluded and judgment reserved. The two experts concluded that the CD was tampered with. Papcun said his analysis showed discontinuities in the conversations which showed that the “recording is not an authentic and valid representation of an original conversation and tampering in at least five critical places” in Shanti Bhushan’s speech. He also found a probable gap in recording.
    S R Singh said that the conversations between Shanti Bhushan, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh were fabricated. He said that his analysis indicated that a substantial part of the recordings were electronically copied to build up and fabricate the questioned recording.
    The findings of Papcun and Singh have proven wrong the assessment of forensic experts whom TOI quoted on Sunday as saying that the CD did not appear to have been doctored. Citing Singh of Truth Labs, Prashant Bhushan said that at least three parts of Mulayam Singh’s speech in the forged CD had been lifted from the tapes which he had filed in the Supreme Court in 2006 to demand that Amar Singh’s intercepted phone conversations be made public.
DOCTORING DIALOGUES
Last week, a CD surfaced which had anti-corruption crusader Shanti Bhushan purportedly telling Mulayam Singh Yadav his son Prashant could fix a judge for Rs 4 crore. Experts George Papcun and S R Singh say the CD was doctored
Papcun: US expert in acoustic phonetics who has worked for Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Aerospace Corporation and the phonetics laboratory of University of California says:
    The recording is not an
    authentic and valid
representation of an original conversation
Discontinuities in CD and tampering in at least five critical places in Shanti Bhushan’s purported speech S R Singh, formerly of CFSL and ex-CBI officer, has given his opinion on behalf of Hyderabad-based Truth Labs:
    Discontinuities and breaks in audio
    recording indicating conversation between Mulayam, Amar Singh and Shanti Bhushan fabricated
Fabrication done by lifting bits of different conversations that Mulayam had with Amar Singh
Three bits inserted from conversation the two had in 2006 and the tape of which was submitted by Prashant in SC to demand that the Amar tapes be made public Bhushans to move SC on doctored CD
New Delhi: Two forensic experts have established that the Shanti Bhushan tape where he purportedly asked for money to fix a case was fabricated.
    Armed with the forensic reports, lawyer Prashant Bhushan told a press meet that the findings had established that there was an attempt to malign the reputation of the Bhushans as well as the civil society activists fighting against corruption. "All the three known instances of fabrication have been lifted from a single three-minute conversation Mr Amar Singh had with Mr Mulayam Singh," he said, adding that he would move the Supreme Court in the next few days and seek remedy under Section 469 of the IPC (attempt to harm reputation through forgery).
    Bhushan elaborated on his charge that the forged CD was an attempt to subvert the judicial proceedings in the two important cases by alleging complicity of corporates and politicians like Amar Singh. Referring to Amar Singh's purported statement in the CD that Bhushan could manage a Supreme Court judge, he said, "It seems to be no coincidence that the judge Amar Singh appears to name in that context is heading the Bench which has heard and reserved judgments in the Amar Singh tapes case as well as the case challenging the legality of 2G licences, in both of which I was a lawyer."
    He further said, "This raises the serious concern whether the object of the fabricated CD was, among other things, to subvert the judicial process in these two sensitive cases." In the CD established to have been forged, Shanti Bhushan tells Mulayam in a conversation arranged by Amar Singh that Prashant Bhusant could manage the judge in question for Rs 4 crore.
    "We have to get to the root of this conspiracy," Bhushan said as he expressed confidence that the SC would take up his plea for initiating contempt of court proceedings against the persons concerned. He refrained from accusing the government of complicity in the conspiracy but said the process of drafting the Lokpal Bill could suffer if members of the regime were found to be involved. He threatened to file a criminal defamation suit against Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh for alleging that his family had engaged in stamp duty evasion while buying an Allahabad property.