AMS, Bangaru: Time to draw the line on sting operations

Everyone and the dog-at-the-lamp-post may be happy that the BJP got its comeuppance on corruption with the conviction of its former president , Bangaru Laxman, in the Tehelka sting operation. But we should spare the schadenfreude. The judgment of the CBI Special Court, if finally upheld by the higher courts, holds dark portents for all of us. It could open the floodgates for anyone and everyone to conduct a sting operation that may or may not have public interest as its goal. We all now need to check our hotel rooms for hidden cameras, or loos for spycams. We also need to be doubly guarded when talking to people we don’t know much about. Almost as if to underline this potential for private mischief, last month we had the Abhishek Manu Singhvi video doing the rounds – carried out, of all people, by his estranged former driver. Clearly, stings have been democratised to an extent where no one can consider himself safe from peeping toms. In this context we need to look at various kinds of stings, and what the courts have said about them, so that we all know where to draw the line in future. [caption id=“attachment_297004” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The CBI court which looked into the Tehelka case involving Laxman was apparently unhappy only about the “objectionable” method chosen by the journos to expose defence corruption, not the outcome. Reuters”]  [/caption] The CBI court which looked into the Tehelka case involving Laxman was apparently unhappy only about the “objectionable” method chosen by the journos to expose defence corruption, not the outcome. In an earlier verdict, the Delhi High Court upheld another journalist sting operation in the BMW hit-and-run case that was telecast by NDTV. In that case, the Supreme Court decided in favour of NDTV as that sting exposed attempts to subvert justice where a witness was shown discussing the price for changing his testimony with a lawyer and a public prosecutor. The court held that as long as there was public interest at stake, and no personal agenda, and there was no intention to subvert any ongoing trial, it would not interfere with the rights of the media to conduct a sting operation. In the cash-for-votes scam of 2008, where the sting operation was less a media operation and more of a BJP-led attempt to expose the UPA’s attempts to buy votes in a no-trust motion, the main protagonists (Sudheendra Kulkarni and three past and present BJP MPs) were arrested and kept in jail for nearly two months before being released on bail after the judge found no “prima facie evidence or recording of the illegal gratification by three MPs.” The interesting sidelight in this case is that Tehelka went out on a limb to suggest that this “sting” was somehow less than valid. In a report in April 2011, the magazine decided that a sting done by a political party was equal to entrapment – but not its own sting of Laxman, where there was no actual corruption involved, but only offers of bribe for a fake defence product on behalf of a fake firm. It wrote: “This is a story that stands to turn contemporary discourse on its head. It is a dark story of how three mainstream political parties—and sections of the media—have fooled the nation. It is a story of how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) willfully set out to entrap its opponents in the cash-for-votes scandal. This is a story of how the Samajwadi Party voluntarily fell into the trap. This is a story of how the Congress covered it all up. It is also, unfortunately, a story of how sections of the media muddied the truth.” The salient feature of the “non-media” Singhvi sting – which allegedly saw him cavorting with a lady with aspirations to become a high court judge – is that it was intended to place Singhvi in an embarrassing position (for revenge, for blackmail?) and that it could be done so easily (by a driver, with minimal spycam hardware). The argument that it was in the public interest is an after-thought (by both the social media which went to town with it, and journalists), since nobody could have known in advance that there was going to be loose talk about the appointment of high court judges in this private rendezvous. So we have four situations, and four different stories on media-led and non-media-led stings and their justification – or lack of it. But that’s not all. To all these stings, we need to add the legal stings and eavesdropping that is going on – like those revealed by the Radia tapes affair, which saw well-known journalists in compromising conversations which they had trouble justifying. Here are the danger signals we should all be noting. Continues on the next page As pointed out by S Muralidharan in BusinessLine, the CBI Special Judge Kanwaljeet Arora’s verdict on Bangaru Laxman essentially means the following: entrapment is fine for exposing bribe-givers; and anyone can do it. No police sanction or even official endorsement is required for a sting operation. The Supreme Court’s NDTV judgment means that it will not interfere with stings done in public interest. But the problem is this: how do we know there is public interest involved? Was the BJP cash-for-votes not in public interest, where vote-buying was being exposed in a democracy? Or should we see that as a private operation – since it would have enabled the BJP to make political capital out of it if it had worked out as planned? Moreover, when media looks for scoops from stings, is it public interest or private interest (of a media house seeking higher readership) masquerading as public interest? Does a media house not have an “interest” when it does some kinds of politically-loaded stings? The AM Singhvi sting shows that almost anyone can mount a sting in personal interest – and social media can amplify it and do damage before anyone can act. Even the courts were found to be toothless in this case. But there is a larger question: why is a private sting any less legitimate than a public interest one? If I am a common man, and I want to expose the ration officer for demanding a bribe, is it only private interest (my need to get a ration card) or quasi-public interest? Am I not doing the public a favour by using my personal case for a larger purpose? In the Laxman case, Tehelka was probably motivated by higher concerns than just circulation or visibility. But who would know that? And is Tehelka not courting trouble, too? What if Laxman was not as gullible and had instead mounted his own cameras in his chamber to book them? What if he had got the sting operators arrested for “deliberate entrapment” and attempts to blackmail him? Who will protect Tehelka then? Can media get away saying it was doing everything in public interest? The Radia tapes also bring another aspect to light: two can play this game of stings. The officially-leaked tapes were probably intended to put journalists in their place – but we can’t ever know that. Exposing journalists can also be part of public interest. Clearly, there is need to bring sanity to the sting business before it gets completely out of hand. As far as the media is concerned, while it cannot go around seeking official (police or court) permissions to conduct stings, at the very least it must have its sting proposals vetted by a internal media watchdog headed by journalists with impeccable credentials. Without this secondary (preferably external) validation of the purpose of the sting, we can never know if a sting is for circulation purposes alone, or serves a genuine public interest. It is no longer right to let individual publications to do their own things without an external audit. At the very least, if a sting goes horribly wrong – which it hasn’t so far because most Indians still seem to love talking even to strangers - it can prove its bonafides before a court of law. The free-for-all cannot last. What’s the bet that the next stings will entrap journalists rather than politicians or businesspersons? As for private stings for private ends, the courts will surely have the last word on them.