Shanti Bhushan CD genuine: Delhi Police

NEW DELHI: Tension between the government and Anna Hazare group may flare up again, with Delhi Police telling a city court on Tuesday that the controversial CD of Shanti Bhushan where the senior lawyer purportedly offered to manage a judge through his lawyer son Prashant Bhushan was genuine.
"The CD is not doctored/tampered with, Delhi Police told chief metropolitan magistrate Vinod Yadav as it informed the court of its decision to close probe into Bhushans' allegation that the CD was a "cut-and-paste job meant to tarnish their reputation and derail their anti-corruption campaign.
Delhi Police has based its "closure report on the findings of Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Delhi and Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
Prashant Bhushan dismissed the finding of the two government labs as a "dishonest report" which showed the police was under the influence of some "very powerful elements in government". The key member of the Hazare campaign said he would ask for a judicial inquiry or investigation by an agency outside the government like an SIT.
In their reports to Delhi Police, both labs rejected the allegation of tampering by saying "the recorded conversation in CD is in contextual continuity and, further, there was "no sign of abrupt changes or editing marks in the audio.
The investigators also cited the statement of expelled SP leader Amar Singh that his conversations with Mulayam Singh Yadav, which are part of the CD, were genuine.
Delhi Police sent the CD to CERT-In after a government forensic laboratory in Chandigarh agreed with the finding of private experts hired by the Bhushans that the CD had been spliced.
The CD has Shanti Bhushan allegedly telling Amar Singh that his son Prashant Bhushan could manage an HC judge for a fee.
Seeking closure of the case, Delhi Police told the CMM, "Since the opinion given by CFSL Delhi and CERT-In are similar and CERT-In having expertise in information technology corroborates the opinion of CFSL Delhi, there is no reason to disbelieve these two reports.
The police added, "From the experts' opinion, it has been established that the CD in question has not been tampered, hence the offence of forgery under section 469 of IPC has not been made out. From the evidence collected during investigation, there is neither substantial nor corroborative evidence to prove the commission of offence under section 469. The outcome of the investigation conducted so far and the legal opinion has been discussed with senior officers and therefore, the cancellation report is being filed.
Shanti Bhushan had lodged an FIR with I P Estate Police Station on April 14, saying the "CD is fabricated as he had never any conversation with Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh over telephone.
However, the police's closure report said, "The CD provided by complainant (Shanti Bhushan) and CD delivered to office of an English daily which was obtained from the office of Chief Justice of India, are the same as the recorded conversations in both CDs are not tampered with.
Prashant Bhushan said, "This investigation shows the depressing need in the country for both Lokpal and police reforms. It shows that the police continue to function as an instrumentality and hand maiden for the ruling political establishment."
He added, "The dishonesty of the police investigation is clear not only from the facts that they ignored the Chandigarh CFSL report and the report of Truth Labs as well as American labs which we had given to Delhi Police but more importantly they ignored the Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh CD which has been filed in the Supreme Court five years ago from which all of Mulayam Singh's speech in this CD has been cut and pasted. If there had been an independent institution to investigate this case, not only Amar Singh but the officials of Delhi CFSL as well as Delhi Police investigating would be in jail for criminal conspiracy."
Delhi Police got the CD examined thrice in the past four months. First report was given by CFSL Delhi in which it was mentioned that "CD was authentic and could not have been tampered. On April 21, Delhi Police sent the CD to CFSL Chandigarh for a second opinion but got a shock when the lab stated that "there is change in signal level, abrupt start of conversation as well as contextual variations at some places and same different words were found inserted at numerous places in the CD. The Chandigarh lab opined that "compact disc is not original and it is a post-production edited version.
Following contradictory reports by two central laboratories, Delhi Police then sent the CD to CERT-In at Lodhi Road. CERT-In is an expert in information technology examinations. The third report opined that "no part of the content contained in the CD was noticed as deleted/overwritten after the creation of CD. Meanwhile, Amar Singh was questioned on July 22 and he claimed that it was his voice on the CD.
The court will decide on the report on November 24.