Lokpal controversy: Shanti Bhushan ‘heard’ saying judge can be bribed

It would seem that the anit-corruption Lokpal Bill cannot even be drafted without controversy. As the drafting committee prepares to meet for the first time today, a compact disc delivered anonymously to media houses purportedly has Shanti Bhushan, picked to co-chair the committee, talking to politicians Mulayam Singh Yadav and his estranged former lieutenant Amar Singh about ''fixing'' a judge.

The voice of a man (apparently Shanti Bhushan) suggests in the three-way conversation that a judge can be bribed in a matter relating to Andhra Pradesh.

Bhushan, a former law minister, is heard saying his son Prashant can do this for Rs4 crore. Prashant Bhushan is also on the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, along with activists Arvind Kejriwal and Anna Hazare as the other non-government members.

The conversation on the CD suggests that Shanti Bhushan and Amar Singh are together when Singh calls Yadav. A man, purportedly Singh, hands the phone to another - purportedly Bhushan - who states a judge handling a case that Singh and Yadav refer to can be bribed.

Prashant Bhushan said that while the voice on the CD may be his father's, it needs to be tested in a forensic lab, and that different conversations seems to have been spliced together to create a false narrative. He said that his father has never met Amar Singh.

Prashant Bhushan believes this is "a concerted campaign" to smear the representatives of civil society that will work alongside five ministers to draft the bill. He described the CD as "fabricated" and said he has lodged a police case to determine who has created and circulated it.