The
Hindustan Times report on the CD involving former union minister Shanti Bhushan placed reliance on a forensic analysis obtained from a government agency that has the high quality equipment and expertise for such examinations.
The report wasn't based on opinion tendered
verbally. HT is in possession of the agency's conclusions in writing and shall reveal them at an appropriate time now that Bhushan's advocate son Prashant Bhushan has cast aspersions on wide sections of the media that carried reports on the CD and its contents and threatened to move the court.
The agency relied upon by HT was set up with huge investments to fight cyber crime. It based its conclusions on "waveform analysis" done on "sonic software" that isn't available with any private entity in the country. The equipment and software cost around Rs2 crore.
For his part, Prashant Bhushan has questioned the veracity of the CD on the basis of audio analyses by American expert George Papcun and Truthlabs, a Hyderabad-based private facility set up in 2009. But when contacted by HT on Sunday night, Truthlabs chairman PC Gandhi did not specify the software and the equipment used to examine the CD. He only said: "We have the necessary equipment for such examination."
The forensic report obtained by HT opined that "the conversation on the CD was continuous -- without any break and the said audio file appears to be not tampered (with)." In his response, Bhushan senior had told this newspaper: "Only a part of the voice looks like mine. If you are saying the conversation is continuous, then it is a case of somebody having imitated my voice."
On the basis of the reports he obtained, Prashant Bhushan alleged that "the purported conversation between Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh on the CD has been lifted from the 2006 CD of the latter which is with the Supreme Court now."
In response, an expert in the agency that gave HT the report said: "the chunk of the conversation on the CD furnished to us isn't tampered with though it could be a sub-set of some other CD. This does not in any way alter our original conclusions."