MLA Bains: Tape ‘proves anti-Khaira plot’

Chandigarh : Legislator Simarjit Singh Bains of the Lok Insaaf Party, an AAP ally, today released an audio-tape to “prove a plot” against Punjab’s Leader of Opposition (LoP) and AAP MLA Sukhpal Khaira, who has been summoned by a Fazilka court for questioning on his alleged links with drug smugglers.
Bains and his brother Balwinder Singh released a 17-minute recording in which former Deputy Advocate General Amit Chaudhary puportedly tells former PCS officer TK Goel that Rs 35 lakh had been paid to a judge to ensure that Khaira’s review petition in the High Court, that the charges against him be quashed, was dismissed.
Chaudhary, claiming he had received the ‘text’ of the court order a day before it was pronounced, is heard saying it had been pre-decided that non-bailable warrants against Khaira would be cancelled but his review petition in the High Court dismissed. Chaudhary, who was DAG during the SAD-BJP tenure, told The Tribune that the audio-tape had been “manipulated”. He said he had met Goel, one of his clients, a number of times “but no such conversation took place”. Goel, a former PCS officer, was recently dismissed from service on corruption charges. He could not be contacted.
Bains said he would submit a video-recording of the Chaudhary-Goel meeting and “reveal the date, time, place of the conversation” either to the CBI or the High Court.