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- By Parinda News Bureau, February 24, 2006, 10:59 IST
New Delhi : Much to the embarrassment of Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh, a compact disc containing records of phone calls purportedly made by him to Mulayam Singh Yadav, Anil Ambani and some actresses have surfaced in the offices of two private news television channels here.
The tapes, teasingly titled Amar Singh ki kahani, have not been telecast as Singh dispatched legal notices to all TV channels, asking them not to air the "illegal and unauthorized tapes."
NDTV, however, aired an interview with the SP leader, wherein he ended up either denying or confirming the allegations contained in the CD that he claims is morphed and doctored. In this ingenious manner, the channel was able to put out details of the conversations contained in the CD without airing a clip.
In one such conversation, purportedly with Mulayam Singh Yadav, which Singh claims is doctored, the "removal" of a High Court judge figures. The SP leader later denied in the interview to the channel that Yadav ever spoken to him about removing a judge in case the latter gave an unfavourable ruling against Singh.
NDTV also sought Singh's comments on his purported conversation with industrialist Anil Ambani regarding a business project and with several film actresses, who were not named.
Singh admitted to having spoken to Ambani but denied it related to financial favours for himself as alleged in the CD.
Singh said he could say definitely about the allegations only if he obtains the CD and listens to it.
NDTV, in all fairness, offered to provide him a copy of the CD it claims to have got from an anonymous source to verify tire contents, but he refused to oblige saying it won't serve any public purpose. In his legal notice, Singh has asked the channels to give the CD to die apex court. "Let the Supreme Court hear the tapes and then decide," he said.
The Samajwadi Party leader has accused the Congress and a Mumbai-based industrialist (rumoured to be Mukesh Ambani) of distributing the tapes to the media. He has also alleged the hand of "a former Congress spokeswoman who is now a Union Minister" in the unsavory episode.
Amar Singh's lawyer Pradip Singh Rai said he was moving the Supreme Court for a judicial inquiry into the leak of the CDs to the media. Two TV journalists who contacted Amar Singh for his comments have been identified in the application as source of new information, Rai said. He said a legal notice had been served on the TV channels to surrender the CDs to the Supreme Court that is hearing a petition against the illegal taping of phones.
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