Speculation on whether contents are intended to tarnish his and his son's image
The surreptitious surfacing of a compact disc containing an alleged phone conversation between senior advocate Shanti Bhushan; the former Samajwadi Party general secretary, Amar Singh; and the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has raised suspicion in legal circles.
The CD was sent anonymously to a number of newspapers and TV channels, one of whose reporters brought it to the notice of Mr. Shanti Bhushan's son, Prashant Bhushan.
The junior Bhushan is also a top lawyer and has recently appeared before the Supreme Court in many high profile cases including the 2G spectrum scam and Amar Singh tapes matter.
Last month, a Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly reserved judgment in the case of Amar Singh tapes, which Mr. Prashant Bhushan argued should be made public. In 2006, the Supreme Court had passed an order restraining the media from publishing the tapes, which contain conversations allegedly involving fixing of tenders and High Court Benches.
The present CD was released just prior to the first meeting of the joint committee tasked with drafting the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill. As both Bhushans are its members, there is speculation on whether the timing of the release of the CD and disclosure of its contents are intended to tarnish their image. The fact that the CD has been circulated before the court delivers its judgment in the Amar Singh tapes case has also raised suspicion that the intent is to pressure the judiciary in that matter.
Mr. Shanti Bhushan has already registered a case with the Delhi Police alleging that the CD, the contents of which are defamatory, has been fabricated. He has demanded that the issue be investigated immediately.
While reserving verdict in the Amar Singh tapes matter, the Bench headed by Justice Singhvi indicated that the gag would be lifted.
The Bench, after going through one of the transcripts, expressed shock at a conversation in which Mr. Amar Singh and the then Chief Minister talked about approaching the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court to allot a case to a Bench supposedly favourable to them. “[This is] absolutely murky. It is one of the darkest days of our democracy and the judiciary,” the Bench observed.
The case filed by Mr. Amar Singh in 2006 sought an inquiry, alleging that the Congress was using the tactic of phone interceptions against smaller parties. It subsequently emerged that the intercepts were conducted by Reliance Infocomm on the basis of a forged authorisation letter. The Bench indicated that Mr. Singh should seek a remedy from Reliance, and not the court.
The Centre for Public Interest Litigation, through Mr. Prashant Bhushan, had sought the court's direction for making the conversations public. Mr. Bhushan had expressed concern at the nature of conversations, which, he argued, were not at all personal since deals affecting the public interest were discussed.
Keywords: Shanti Bhushan, phone conversation CD, 2G spectrum, Lokpal Bill
Yes. The timing of the release of the CD and anonymous delivery are highly questionable. If it is genuine then what is it doing in a closet for so long? I don't believe it.
Did Amar Singh Fix Indian Media? From posts on internet, there are indications that HUGE amounts were paid by congress party to Amar Singh for manufacture of controversy, too many times during recent years. I also feel, Indian media can be fixed, on some considerations, to apply wholeday telecast to Rescuing A Frog Stuck Under A Brick. There have been AT LEAST two instances, where I spent time and money broadcasting more sensitive issues to media and government but no one listened. 1. Fraudulent business run by telephone operator of Army HQ for years http://ukmall.net/undigested/ismart 2. Fake Lottery Industry from Relance Servers - Occasionally From Vodafone/TataIndicom/BSNL Mobile SMS Service http://ukmall.net/undigested/trai http://ukmall.net/undigested/lottery Is is too difficult to nab holder of Vodafone mobile 9873456852 ? Police Commissioner, DOT Chief and all other responsible should be arrested and prosecuted for inaction. Indian media should be deemed as vulnerable, at par with Indian judiciary.
I was reading Digviay Singh and Karan Thapar interview scripts from ibnlive.com. Karan Thapar asks tailor made questions to Digvijay ,as if Anna Hazare is totally naive and immature to be in janlokpal panel. Digvijay states that Anna is exploited by some people. It was funny that Digvijay doesnt know that he is getting exploited by corrupt people. In fact he is naive. India is not like 1990s anymore.Millions of middle class people read and update the news every hour via electronic media and share their views in social media. It's naive that Digvijay thinks he can confuse ordinary common people and he thinks he can frustrate people like Arvind Kejriwal. Very sad to see that anchors like Karan Thapar losing moral and conducting shows like this. I will never trust journalist like Karan Thapar again.Anna Hazare will win.
Please Take whatever News broadcasted in the News Channels with a pinch of salt; These TV channels obtained licenses for their operations by apple polishing, bribing the ministers in the cabinet.
The CD black mail should not deter the Civil Society to slacken its efforts. They should combat the corruption menace with redoubled vigour. The people should support Anna and team ignoring all these diversionary tactics adopted by corrupt politicians.
Has NDTV has become stooge of Corrupt politicians!! While the agitation was going, I was appalled to see, they were reporting messages from some people saying 'this agitation is Black mailing'.
It is obvious that the CD incident is only a ploy to divert the attention of the people from the real issue of corruption by the ruling class.Congress will stoop to any low to stop the bill.Let us see through this game and support the civil society members who are spending their time and energy for a corruption free india.
Shame on all of you who are behing this fake CD..This CD thing is good for one reason... people would come even strongly to support Anna & team.
Strong and fool proof Lok Pal Bill is the only solution for all these problems. Let us support this movement from the bottom of our heart.
The CD episode clearly shows the depth of frustration among the corrupt in India. It also reveals the strength of forces against radical steps to eliminate corruption. All of us should be steadfast in our fight against this evil that is draining up the energy of our great nation.
I have to doubt the good words spoken by Kapil Sibal who gave the impression that the government and the civil society have joined up to fight against the corruption. If he is true to his words, he should now make a statement urging the entire nation to focus on the Jan Lokpal bill and its passing into a law.
Politicians make all efforts to tarnish the image of talented people and prevent them from coming front to fight against their corrupt practices.
This is done by those who want corruption for ever. They will do this and more to tarnish name of the genuine people of this country.
We know how they put Anna into trouble. Now they are doing this against the other fighters. If Gandhiji was there, they would have done similar acts against him as well for sure.
The timing of the release of the CD manifests the ill motive of the people behind the release.
Many powerful politicians both within and outside the ruling party have much to lose if a very tough anti-corruption Lokpal Bill comes into force. These people did not allow the Lokpal Bill to be passed by Parliament earlier. Now they want to discredit those engaged in writing the draft Lokpal Bill.
The CD controversy is unfortunate and will have adverse impact on the constitution and functioning of the Draft Committee. As the nation is in need of persons like Bhusan, let us hope that the dust will be cleared and we mean business.
Yes,this is a battle against corrpution which is showing its strength. That's why these corrupt people from political class are trying their best to make the movement as failure. Let us not fall in their trap as we always do.
Circulation of fake CD proves that corrupt politicians would do anything to derail the Jan Lokpal Bill.
Drafting the bill needs experts. Shanti Bhushan and Prashanth Bhushan are considered as experts from the civil society. Once that strong bill is implemented, take action on them if they are found corrupt.
I heard Digvijay Singh on TV say that the CD casts doubts on Shanti Bhushan's fitness to be a member of the Lokpal bill drafting committee. The Congress should clarify whether Digvijay Singh is stating the official party line. It would be shameful if an obviously fake CD is used by the government to tarnish the reputation of an individual.
We should not underestimate the strength of the corrupts people of India. They are running the shows everywhere. They could not do anything, when Anna was on fast unto death, because they need hypocracy too. This is the reason, why Anna's fast was successful in forcing the Central Government to accept the representatives of Civil Society in the panel to draft Lok Pal Bill. After tasting the defeat the corrupt people sitting in almost all spheres of establishment are trying their best to frustrate the efforts of those fighting against corruption in high places and pressing for a meaningful and strong Lok Pal. They have circulated the CDs only to achieve this objective. Mr Shanti Bhushan has acted swiftly and the conspirators have falied to tarnish his image. But, this is not the end of the dirty game. Let us see, what they do next. We, the people of India, must stand behind Anna and his team and should not fall into the trap of the corrupt people running the system. What is important for us is the strong Lok Pal Act.
Without getting into whether the CD is true or false, it is quite disappointing to see it being used as a smear campaign. Even if it were totally true, the Bhushans have certainly showed enough commitment to the interests of the common man to represent them in this effort. This kind of sabotage is a reflection on how little we believe in democracy, where we go for illusions of complete representation by politicians or smear unorthodox methods of civil representation and the leaders they emerge. It seems that few people trust that the elected politicians and the civil leaders together can cover concerns of more perspectives and ensure a law that will strengthen our country. It is a blot on what we as a country have achieved in our existence that the citizenry is so jaded and bent on sabotage of anything new. Its like - kill the hope before it can disappoint and hurt us yet again.
I happened to watch NDTV last night and the correspondent (Nidhi) was asking Swami Agnivesh whether the committee can be headed by Shanthi Bhushanji when there is an allegation such as this? It is surprising that NDTV is asking this question when they are retaining Barkha Dutt as their senior correspondent who is actually tainted in the 2G spectrum case. NDTV is being judgemental and also claiming that the government side has won the first round by not accepting to video graphing the entire proceedings. On the face of it, it looks like NDTV is happier to project the corrupt people as victors. By the way, why have the committee members from the government side not declared their assets till now? This only goes to show that some people from the media are stooges of this corrupt UPA government and will go to any extent to sabotage the passing of this bill for their own interests and for their master's interests. Anyway, all like minded people are with Annaji and we see no threat from these people.
No doubt that there are people who want to tarnish Lokpal bill panel member's image in public's eyes
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