Special Judge (anti-corruption ) B L Soni,on Wednesday,reserved the ordered on the question of whether charges should be framed against Union Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife Pratibha Singh,a former MP in the graft case registered against the two by the state Vigilance and Ant-corruption Bureau on the basis of a controversial audio-CD in 2009. The court fixed June 25 as the next date for framing of charges. Virbhadra Singhs lawyers argued that available evidence on record and the Vigilance report doesnt warrant framing of corruption charges and the case should be dropped. They asserted that the case was frivolous and was registered on the basis of an audio cassette,whose origin,source and authenticity were unknown. Special public prosecutor Jiwan Lal Sharma,who during an earlier hearing got the controversial audio-cassette played in court as an evidence,insisted that it was a fit case. There was no cut-and-paste of voices in the cassette. Moreover,the Chandigarh-based Central Forensic Science Laboratory authenticated that the voices of Virbhadra Singh and his wife matched with that in the cassette, Sharma told the court. Two key witnesses in the case,both industrialists - whose reference was also in the audio-cassettee had also filed a petition in the high court,but their pleas were dismissed. Virbhadra had filed three writ petitions in the high court to seek quashing of the FIR or transferring the investigations to the CBI but his pleas were not allowed. story of the Audio CD The controversial audio-CD (converted from an audio-cassette) was released by Major (retd) Vijai Singh Mankotia,a former congress minister at the time when Virbhadra Singh was chief minister in 2007. The CD purportedly contains Virbhadra and his wife in conversation with former IAS officer Mohinder Lal (who died sometime back). The prosecution claimed that the cassette contained the union ministers voice while referring to some monetary transactions with industrialists.
