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Jurists, journalists slam Tehelka, but oppose criminal action

Ajit Sahi in New Delhi

Leading lawyers and journalists on Thursday criticised the portal tehelka.com for using prostitutes to trap defence officials in a videotaped exposé on corruption in defence deals.

"Just as journalists cannot use bullets and sticks, they cannot use women as it is wholly improper," Supreme Court lawyer Rajeev Dhawan told IANS.

Veteran editor Pran Chopra said: "It is completely unworthy of a good journalistic effort to have gone through the processes that Tehelka went through, including supplying women."

They were reacting to Wednesday's disclosures that two Tehelka reporters, posing as arms dealers, supplied prostitutes to three Indian Army officers last year. The reporters secretly taped at least one of the officers having sex.

The revelation has revived a sensational corruption scandal Tehelka broke in March, as its reporters went around bribing politicians, bureaucrats and defence personnel and videotaping it all to show how military deals are struck.

The scandal badly rocked Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government. Defence Minister George Fernandes resigned, as did Bharatiya Janata Party president Bangaru Laxman and Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitly.

The scandal also implicated several Indian Army officers and defence ministry officials. The government was forced to appoint a retired Supreme Court judge to probe the charges.

On Wednesday, angry MPs from Vajpayee's coalition blocked business in Parliament and demanded that the portal's managing director, Tarun Tejpal, be arrested for "pimping and prostitution."

But the lawyers and journalists IANS spoke to on Thursday oppose the idea.

"I find some force in Tejpal's argument that he used the prostitutes in the national interest because it exposed the corrupt," said editor Chopra. "Otherwise, I would have straightway said the portal should be prosecuted."

Added veteran lawyer P.N. Lekhi: "The demand for Tejpal's arrest and prosecution by the political parties is an overreaction."

In any case, the fact that Tejpal used prostitutes to lure the officials did not absolve the politicians and bureaucrats implicated in the scandal, they said.

According to Dhawan, using prostitutes did not "weaken the truth" that corruption was rampant in the army. "It (supply of prostitutes) cannot be used to defend the people who are answerable to the Indian democracy."

Former Supreme Court chief justice A M Ahmadi said: "It does appear the method used (by Tehelka) is not correct. Yet, it shows how porous our system has become. Our armed forces succumb to such small allurements."

Senior journalist Inder Malhotra remarked: "Tehelka's ethics were questioned even earlier and its case has now weakened with the use of prostitutes. But whatever Tehelka's wrong doings, the state of affairs in the army is shocking. Also, that both Laxman and Jaitly accepted bribes is indisputable. Fernandes' constructive responsibility is irrefutable."

But Lekhi contested Tejpal's assertion that his unusual action of supplying prostitutes was justifiable since it was similar to a two-decade-old sensational story by a newspaper that "bought" a poor woman who was sold off by feudal lords.

Lekhi, who was associated with that effort by The Indian Express in buying the woman Kamala at Dholpur in Rajasthan state, said that case was fundamentally different.

"When we attempted the Kamala story, we sent a letter to then president Zail Singh detailing the move and asking him to open it later. Besides, there was no sex nor any hidden recording."

Agreeing with Lekhi, Chopra said: "The two stories are different. The buyers of Kamala pretended to be purchasers of a woman but did not have sex with her."

For lawyer Dhawan, the fresh disclosures have only one moral. "We hope this kind of journalism will not plague India in future. We also hope that India's government and security would not never be undermined in this manner in future."

Indo-Asian News Service

Complete coverage of Operation West End

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