SC opens a can of worms by sanctifying sting operations

The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the Delhi police’s appeal to prosecute two journalists for conducting a sting operation against members of Parliament in 2005 in the cash-for-questions scam has wide ramifications. In its judgment, a bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam quashed the special leave petition filed by the police against an earlier Delhi High Court verdict junking their charge-sheet against journalists Aniruddha Bahal and Suhasini Raj of Cobrapost.com. The Times of India reports that the two journalists had conducted a sting operation called “Operation Duryodhan” which was aired in December 2005. Following this and a parliamentary enquiry, 11 MPs were expelled for taking cash to ask questions in parliament. The police claimed sting operations needed their sanction, since any person who was aware of the possibility of an offence had to inform the police about it. The apex court would have none of it, but the judgment opens a entire can of worms. First, the judgement essentially sanctifies sting operations. This means that, ultimately, the BJP MPs (and ex-MPs) who are now in jail in the cash-for-votes scam for allegedly “entrapping” bribe givers before the July 2008 confidence vote (which the UPA won), can claim the same legitimacy for their operation. Does the court want a stings-without-strings situation? [caption id=“attachment_111499” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”]  [/caption]Second, the Supreme Court also seemed to justify the position that the police need not be informed in advance about sting operations. The court ruled out this possibility on the ground that “the respective MPs would have been given information by the police beforehand and would have been cautioned about the entire operation." This is an extraordinary admission and amounts to saying that the police can be assumed to be in league with politicians and MPs. If this argument is valid, the whole claim of the police - that the BJP ex-MPs should have gone to the police if they had information about attempts to buy votes in 2008 - falls flat. Sudheendra Kulkarni, former aide of LK Advani, and three MPs and ex-MPs who have been arrested in the cash-for-votes scam, claim they were whistle-blowers. They are likely to use this judgment to extricate themselves from their predicament. Third, if journalists and political parties take this verdict to mean that they can pry and probe whatever they think is a crime, the potential for misuse of the information is enormous. Consider the possibility that someone who has filmed or taped such evidence could use the information to influence the person targeted. What is to stop crooked journalists or politicians from using stings to coerce and blackmail targets? This is what foreign spy agencies do. Should it now be a free-for-all? Quite clearly, the Supreme Court – while correctly upholding the validity of bonafide sting operations – has opened a pandora’s box of troubles. In view of this, journalists and whistle-blowers need to evolve a code of conduct to ensure that stings do go out of hand. While it makes sense not to tell the police – as the Supreme Court itself seems to suggest – journalistic stings do need some kind of prior sanction from self-regulatory organisations before they are conducted. Perhaps sting operations should have some kind of pre-sanction from the chief of the Press Council or some statutory body whose bonafides are not suspect. In fact, this is necessary for their own protection. Let’s take a situation where a journalist actually gets caught while conducting a sting. Who will be able to vouch for the authenticity of the sting? It could be the editor, but editors of small-time journals and dubious media organisations may be as culpable as the journalists themselves. It is, after all, a well-known fact that in many regional newspapers and channels, journalists and management are sometimes in cahoots to extort money from advertisers or others by using negative news as a threat. Moreover, stings can be conducted for the wrong reasons. What is to stop unscrupulous people from using stings to film private material - secret liaisons and family matters? This would be a gross invasion of privacy. Stings are a double-edged sword for journalists – and the better they are regulated, the more their credibility. Stings cannot become the norm in good journalism. They ought to be the exception rather than the rule.