While claiming that the CDs containing his purported phone conversations with politicians, bureaucrats, Bollywood stars and corporate bigwigs were “doctored,” the former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, however, said he would not initiate any action against Reliance Infocomm — service provider — which tapped his phone for a year on the basis of a forged authorisation letter.
“Why should I act against the phone company? They do not have the wherewithal to investigate. It is the CBI and the government which can investigate. The apex court should have directed the CBI and law enforcing agencies to find out at whose behest the authorisation letter was written,” Mr. Singh said in his reaction to Wednesday's court order lifting the interim gag order on making the tapes public.
The Supreme Court had said Mr. Singh, if so advised, might initiate proceedings against the service provider. Observing that he had “prevaricated” and had not come with “clean hands,” it gave him no relief on his prayer for a judicial enquiry into the matter and guidelines on broadcasting or publishing such conversations.
Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Mr. Singh said although his voice in the CDs was genuine, “like the plea taken by [lawyers] Shanti [Bhushan] and Prashant Bhushan in the matter of a CD featuring the former, I also say that the CDs of my phone conversations are a spliced, cut and paste job.” Mr. Prashant Bhushan was the amicus curiae in the case.
Mr. Singh claimed he had not approached the court for a gag order. “The then Chief Justice of India Y.K. Sabharwal had on his own, in the interest of privacy of an individual, given an interim order banning the tapes from being published or telecast by the media. Now another Bench has lifted the gag order. Whether that Bench was correct or this, I cannot comment.”
Even as he said he was “happy and satisfied” with the court's order, Mr. Singh criticised the court for its observations that he was not entitled to be heard on the merits of his case as he had “prevaricated”' and taken “inconsistent positions.”
Suspecting that the Congress was behind the phone tapping, Mr. Singh had named party president Sonia Gandhi a respondent (no. 7) in the matter. However, when he learnt that the tapping was done on a “farzi” (fraudulent) authorisation, he withdrew his allegations against her. This is one of the inconsistencies the court frowned on.
On the contents of the CDs featuring him, Mr. Singh said he was a “two-in-one” person — an industrialist and politician. “I can have personal talks with other industrialists on business. As [the then] Chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Development Council I took no decisions. I only advised. I had the power of the tongue but no power to take decisions. Even the Prime Minister has advisory councils which have given suggestions. It is up to the person in a constitutional position to take decisions.”
To pointed questions on specific contents of the CDs, he said he did not remember.
