By IANS,
New Delhi: A court here Tuesday pulled up the Delhi Police for not recording the statements of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh to verify the contents of a controversial CD purportedly containing their conversation with lawyer and Team Anna member Shanti Bhushan.
During the conversation, Shanti Bhushan allegedly promised Mulayam Singh that a judge could be influenced for a price and suggested that his son and lawyer Prashant Bhushan would facilitate this.
The CD appeared after Anna Hazare ended his anti-graft fast here in April and Shanti Bhushan was appointed co-chair of the Lokpal bill joint drafting committee.
Allowing Shanti Bhushan’a plea, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav said: “You (police) interrogate him (Amar Singh) for the 2008 cash-for-votes case. And during that you ask him informally if he had spoken to Shanti Bhushan, to which he tells you that Shanti Bhushan had come to his place and had spoken to Mulayam Singh on phone from there. And you are satisfied with this.”
“You feel no need whatsoever of recording his statement formally. How will you prove all this unless you record his statement? The investigation is neither here nor there. You can claim anything but who will prove it,” the court asked police.
The court pulled up police after counsel for Shanti Bhushan, Ajit Singh contended that police should have recorded the statements of Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav to prove its claim that Amar Singh had confirmed the part of conversation between him (Bhushan) and Yadav.
Police in August sought the court’s permission to close the probe into Bhushan’s complaint alleging that the CD was doctored and seeking a probe into its authenticity.
The police sought the closure saying there was no substantive evidence to prove the offence of forgery (doctoring of the controversial CD), as alleged.
Bhushan’s counsel also submitted reports from two forensic laboratories – Hyderabad’s Truth Lab and the other from a US lab – opining that the CD was doctored and sought further investigation.
The court directed police to file a status report by Jan 6 next year.