Truth behind Tehelka: Tejpal's non-journalism and society's colluders

By Jaya Jaitly Tarun Tejpal is at present the butt of the collective ire of those who were envious of his god-like, obviously self-promoted, status. His inflated view of himself in the mirror had not left him even till the time of his anticipatory bail application in the courts. .. a person of “immense global renown” he proclaimed of himself. Having dissected his work and his personality closely since 2001 when I first discovered his existence, I have been convinced of his misplaced sense of overwhelming superiority and his ways of trying to achieve fame and money. At that time he was ably assisted by another gentleman, Aniruddha Bahal, and a motley collection of staffers hired for their underhand type of work that he claimed was path-breaking journalism. It is not too late to examine the nature of Tejpal’s work rather than merely the pathetic acts of an over-sexed honcho. The alleged manipulation of spurious funds within the Tehelka magazine is intrinsically linked with the nature of his journalistic ventures. This must impact on the credibility of his intentions. Without good intentions, any professional work is a sham. Just as the little boy shouted ‘Look, the emperor has no clothes!" erstwhile and current supporters of the Tejpal brand need to examine the way they allowed themselves to be conned. Tejpal’s earliest ventures included plagiarising an HT story on women in Bihar, a bogus story on a Railway Board Chairman’s sexual ventures in Germany which were disproved when he demonstrated through his passport he had not been abroad. There was a thinly disguised effort at pornography when they put out a survey of Indian women’s sexuality, describing women, their names, ages and special sexual interests. Then Mohd Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja’s sporting careers were ruined based on a nonsensical report by the CBI further based on the match-fixing story, later overthrown by the Delhi High Court. [caption id=“attachment_126648” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A screengrab from the video of Tehelka’s sting codenamed Operation Westend[/caption] While the Tehelka Inquiry Commission was on, Tehelka journalists were found guilty by the CBI and the Allahabad High Court of giving poachers cameras and money to kill and skin animals and film the act so that they could have a story on poaching at Corbett Park. The journalist went to jail under the Protection of Wildlife Act. However, it was the Tehelka exercise of Operation Westend, which claimed to expose corrupt defence deals, that is till today described as the start of Tejpal’s ‘immense renown". No one cared for credible evidence or the truth. Within the continuing saga of the Tehelka episode of 2001 lies a palimpsest of misinformation and cover-ups brought about by the Congress Party which saw an opportunity to get even on Bofors, knock the NDA government, viciously attack George Fernandes whom it can never forgive for being staunchly anti-dynasty, and deride the patriotic nationalism that had surged through the country during the Kargil incursion by Pakistan. Defence-related issues were uppermost on people’s minds. What better time than March 2001, after Kargil, after the Kandahar plane hijack, for the self-acclaimed heroes of Tehelka.com to proclaim the “death of the last sacred cow - the defence establishment” and that what they had uncovered was “enough reason for people to lose hope in the idea of India” (Tejpal’s own gloating piece on the website just after the so-called expose) . The subtitle of their Operation Westend story was “How the suitcase people compromised the country’s defence”, and pictures of the people they sought to damn were put up on their website under the title “Rogues Gallery”. The country was carpet-bombed with their story of bribery and sell-out involving politicians, Army and civilian officers and arms dealers. Tehelka’s claim? They had managed to “sell” fictitious products to the Ministry of Defence and obtained a 26-page order for them. To achieve this end they claim they had bribed their way through a maze of lusting, greedy people who pulled them up the ladder of corruption, all the way to the top. The top? Yes, they said, George Fernandes, the Defence Minister, was “indicted beyond redemption” (Bahal’s misleading commentary that accompanied the tapes). When the Defence Minister attempted to make a detailed statement in Parliament to reassure the public that the country’s security was safe and their story was a fraud, the Congress Party denied him and the people this right by preventing the functioning of Parliament. Perceptions, video-taped and edited material, sensationalism and hype were better politics than demanding the truth in Parliament. If the defence establishment was undermined, who cared? Sonia Gandhi, no less, was delighted to go along. The Justice K Venkataswami Commission was set up in April 2001 to find out the truth behind the allegations made in the tapes. The 15 actual procurement decisions mentioned in passing in their videotapes were to be examined for procedures and national security concerns. Their “Operation Westend” may just be a feature film, but the country needed to know whether the Sukhois , AJTs, missiles , rocket launchers, etc, that had been purchased over the years were done under stringent conditions or according to unsavoury methods described by various be-fooled and inebriated businessmen. Everyone appearing on Tehelka’s videotapes speaking about those deals, or in any way engaging in conversation with Tehelka journalists posing as arms dealers/electronics dealers, however innocently, were questioned regarding their conduct so that the Commission of Inquiry could arrive at the truth of the matter. Tehelka journalists’ answers during cross-examination at the Commission are extraordinarily revealing. All this is faithfully recorded for posterity and was freely available to a disinterested media. Repeatedly, the three journalists admitted that they did not verify the material they recorded. Hearsay was good enough for them. When cross-examined regarding the accuracy of their ‘facts’, confronted with contradictions, and asked for evidence to support their assertions, the CEO of Tehelka.com, Tarun Tejpal, blithely stated that “the Commission was there to find out the facts”, and that their stories were “not necessarily accurate” and “was not about individuals but about a system”. The cat was out of the bag. The crux of Tehelka’s story, the punch line and grand finale was the famous 26-page order letter their bribery was supposed to have extracted. Where was it? Cross-examinations revealed that actually they never really got the letter, because “their cover was blown”. Then how did they claim there was a letter at all? They were asked. They claimed Gen Murgai (Retd) had told them. On tape? No, on telephone. Did Tehelka record this conversation? No. Did they have equipment to record telephone conversations? Yes. Then why did they not record this as well as the other conversations where they claimed women and money was demanded of them by the army officers? “Well, we didn’t” they answered casually, with a shrug. So eventually, the bottom fell out of this story too. “George Fernandes indicted beyond redemption,” said Aniruddha Bahal’s narrative on the tape. Well, not really, because he never appears on the tapes. Does Tehelka have evidence that he takes money, he was asked in the Commission. No, said Bahal. “Well, we have let a sentence into the transcript where someone says he doesn’t take money,” said Tarun Tejpal, thus self-righteously disclaiming they had accused George Fernandes of anything. (Note the condescension of ’letting words in’) Then what was all the noise about? Even today, articles on Tejpal’s transgressions refer to the victory of having made George Fernandes resign. Over one-and-a-half months and over ten thousand questions later, Tehelka journalists admitted to having “boasted” (lied) in order “to open gates” to get their story according to a certain “context”. There were admissions of having kept no accounts of their expenses and transactions. They admitted mentioning amounts of money in scenes where receiving money was not filmed “so that the amount given was recorded”. They admitted that a single person Anil Malviya/Rajiv Sharma was accounted for under two names in their ledgers and that this same person who had provided the call girls was now dead! The mystery of how a young man died suddenly in Allahabad during the investigation has never been explained. They admitted to misrepresenting about educational qualifications, age, and submission of false bills for purchase of tapes from non-existent shops. One Shamsuddin, a hawala operator of Chennai, and documents from Shankar Sharma’s computer confirmed that Rs 6 crore had been paid into the latter’s account in Mauritius from where it was transferred to First Global, Mumbai, and on to Tehelka for what they had first termed “a leanly funded journalistic operation”. When asked how many cars and computers they had bought with this money they said “We do not know”. Everyone hoped the Commission would assess all this material, apart from the 1,400 files from the Ministry of Defence and come to a conclusion. But therein lies the rub. On such material, Tehelka’s credibility was low and no evidence against their victims had emerged. Obviously there was consternation in the ranks of the Congress Party and their Tehelka friends. This brings us from Operation Westend to Operation Abort, which began as soon as the commission was constituted. On the advice of the senior counsel to the Commission, Gopal Subramaniam, who has been amply rewarded by the UPA, none of the persons served a notice and seen on the broadcasted tapes was given a copy of this solitary and primary evidence. Requests for Tehelka’s often damningly incorrect and incomplete transcripts to be authenticated and verified as accurate by the Commission were denied until blatant flaws led to re-transcribing by government stenographers. This gave birth to 700 more pages of hitherto un-transcribed material. Requests for forensic authentication of the tapes were repeatedly denied but not rejected. (Today forensic examination has become a must after my concerted battle). The decision on this and on the examination of Tehelka’s source of funds was to be taken after all the depositions were over. Contrary to Tehelka’s virulent campaign at that time, there are three orders to this effect. When the time for this finally came round 19 months later, Congressmen Priyaranjan Das Munshi and Kapil Sibal, as if on cue, accused Justice Venkataswami of having been bought over by the NDA government by accepting an additional assignment. The truth? He had been selected six months earlier by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to head an Income Tax Tribunal. Many other retired judges head many panels simultaneously. But in this case it had the desired effect. Justice K. Venkataswami saved his honour by resigning from both positions. Later, in a press conference, I exposed the collusion between Tehelka lawyers and the Commission counsels in a small sting operation of my own (not through hidden cameras) but by sending a few e-mails to entice them into revealing themselves. They resigned and, without a Chairman, the Commission ran aground. From a ridiculous timeframe of four months, it seemed as if there would never be a conclusion. This was obviously what Tehelka journalists wanted, because when Justice SN Phukan, heading the Assam State Human Rights Commission, agreed to simultaneously take up the unwanted hot potato of the Tehelka inquiry in January 2003, Tehelka, led by its lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who is today a crusader for transparency, let forth a tirade at the resuscitated Commission and announced its boycott. Justice Phukan consulted Justice Venkataswami. The tapes went to an unknown forensic expert in London in June 2003. The identity was deliberately kept secret so that no one would attempt to exert influence and we would not be accused of doctoring the report. The 1,400 confidential Defence Ministry files were combed again by Justice Phukan after which he wrote a voluminous report of 700 pages and publicly handed it over to Prime Minister Vajpayee on 4 February 2004. Strangely, Prime Minister Vajpayee did not make it public. In 23 May, the UPA government was born. The subsequent turns of events are significant. The forensic expert from the UK came to India on 21 June to open his sealed report on the tapes and depose on it, but, significantly, Kapil Sibal had already announced on 28 May 2004 that the tapes were declared genuine. This was repeated in a long story in Tehelka’s weekly paper in which they claimed an army officer as their source. On 23 June, face livid with anger, Justice Phukan asked for a communication from the expert’s boss in London to be read out. It stated, “we have been contacted by Tehelka.com by e-mail requesting an interview…we were also contacted by the India correspondent of the Guardian…it would appear that a Minister has pre-empted Mr Cass’ evidence and we have found reference to this on more than one news website..”. It was obvious that Minister Kapil Sibal had betrayed the oath of secrecy. The government counsel tried to prevent the forensic expert from being cross-examined. The Judge dismissed the objection. It was revealed that while the tapes were the originals there were cuts/edits/ switch on and off signs in many places. So much for ‘untampered primary evidence’ . Justice Phukan repeatedly urged for hearings on final arguments to begin, but the government counsels pressed for adjournments “to read the voluminous documents and apprise themselves of the matter”, delaying proceedings for eight weeks. Finally, on 1 October they handed over a letter from a Deputy Secretary in the Finance Ministry instructing the Commission not to go into the financial aspects or into journalistic motives. By then Tehelka had already admitted to selling the tapes to Zee TV for Rs 50 lakh. It was therefore a commercial venture and not purely nationalistic and journalistic. Also, by this time Sonia Gandhi, in a letter dated 25/27 September 2004 to Finance Minister Chidambaram, had asked him to see that First Global, Tehelka’s financiers, should not be meted out ‘unjust or unfair treatment" (almost exactly the words I used as a condition, if proof were brought, to help the Westend visitor who repeatedly described such treatment being meted out to him and seeking my help. That this was an attempt at entrapment was another matter). When Justice Phukan retorted that he would like to at least like to hear the government’s views on journalistic ethics, alarm bells rang in Congress ears. The Commission set the date for next hearings on 1 November,2004, expecting an extension of a mere three months to submit its report on the remaining issues. Instead, the same afternoon the press was informed that the Commission was dissolved. Both the Law Minister and the Prime Minister accused the Commission of “going nowhere”, delays, and not submitting any report. That these were blatant lies did not even raise a protest from the BJP which was now in the opposition. On 23 May 2005, the Press Information Bureau, through the Prime Minister’s Office, announced the years’ great initiatives of the government. The Law Ministry had “dissolved the Commission because it had not produced any report”, it wrote on its website. Ironically, this “non report” was tabled in Parliament on the very same day but only after the judge was accused of having been corrupted because he was legitimately provided a defence aircraft to examine defence installations. Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee forgot to tell the country he had taken his daughter and son-in-law in an AN 32 defence aircraft to Siachen just prior to that with no authorisation at all. The UPA government rejected the report saying Justice Phukan had not gone into the issue of corruption. It ignored the fact that Justice Phukan had specifically mentioned he had found nothing irregular in the role of George Fernandes in the 15 actual procurements, and that the roles of others would be gone into after hearing their arguments “as per the norms of natural justice”. Instead, the government that aborted the Commission’s work, accused it of not having completed it. A perfect example of “Heads I win, tails you lose”. To add insult to injury Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee stated on the “Aap ki Adalat” programme that “in 47 months the judge had produced only 47 pages and had refused to go into the issue of corruption”. To insult two senior judges, close down a Commission of Inquiry in an unprecedented manner, betray oaths of secrecy, blatantly defend unethical journalism and protect their financier from a simple inquiry, and for the Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Law Minister of the country to lie to its people, and there must have been something very major to hide. The entire government by then seemed to be at the service of Tarun Tejpal and his outfit. We have now reached the ‘caged parrot’ stage wherein the CBI does not have the courage to act independently. All investigations on the 15 real deals have led nowhere. Many have been closed. Some cases as a result of the government and CBI working together are under trial. Tejpal appeared in court recently to absolve himself of any direct knowledge of how the sting operation was conducted, call girls engaged, or even any knowledge of the transgressions of those whose lives and reputations he tarnished for the sake of fame. The cases are used to harass those victims of the sting as is politically mandated. It is irrelevant whether charge sheets make sense or witnesses are credible. It is only necessary to ensure that a cloud of so-called crime hangs over the heads of certain political opponents and other innocents trapped as collateral damage. It is this brand of politics, which prefers fiction to truth, that suits India’s current rulers the best. It is this brand of journalism that Tejpal served up to the gullible both in India and abroad. Are they not as responsible for his rise and fall? Jaya Jaitly is a former Samata Party leader and was one of the targets of Tehelka’s sting operation codenamed Operation Westend. She is also Ajay Jadeja’s mother-in-law.