CBI books Harish Rawat

New Delhi: The CBI has filed an FIR against former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat and his then cabinet colleague Harak Singh Rawat, who is now a member of the state's BJP-led government, for alleged attempts of horse trading in 2016, which was caught on tape by an editor of a news channel, officials said on Wednesday.

The agency had conducted an preliminary enquiry into the alleged horse trading attempt on March 23, 2016 when the state was under President's rule.

It sent the tape to the Forensic Science Laboratory, Gandhinagar in Gujarat for analysis which opined that the recording was "genuine" and there was no evidence of any "addition/ deletion/ insertion/tampering/morphing" in the video files.

The video purportedly showed the Congress leader discussing money to win back the support of disgruntled MLAs who had crossed over to the BJP so that he could get back to power.