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Thursday,
August 23, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Furore over Tehelka in LS
New Delhi, August 22 The House faced three adjournments, the third one for the day, when NDA members standing inside the well of the Lok Sabha demanded the arrest of the portal chief Tarun Tejpal. Raising slogans like “arrest Tejpal”, agitated NDA members taunted the Opposition Congress amidst the din and no amount of persuasion from the Chair and the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr Pramod Mahajan, made them return to their seats. The first adjournment came during zero hour when the NDA members trooped to the well to demand action against the Tehelka chief. They were seen waiving the newspaper that carried the report on the modus operandi of Tehelka. Raising slogans against the Tehelka culprits, the BJP and NDA members shouted “hang them” . In the midst of the din, nothing was audible. Trinamool Congress members, who wanted to raise the issue of law and order situation in West Bengal, were also seen in the well. The Speaker made several pleas to the members to restore order. The Congress, joined by the AIADMK, the RJD and the RPI sought the immediate withdrawal of three orders issued by the department of personnel, contending that these were creating hurdles for reservation in government jobs for SC and ST persons. It recalled that the department had issued five orders some years ago but only two of them were withdrawn after strong protests while three continued to be in operation. After the first adjournment when the House met at 2 pm, only Samajwadi Party members in the well demanding a government statement on the criminal assault on women in Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh. The Speaker initially adjourned the House for 15 minutes and later for the day when there was no sign of order in the House. Meanwhile, Samata Party leader George Fernandes, who resigned as Defence Minister in the wake of the Tehelka expose, today charged the portal with committing a “crime against the country by demoralising” the Army by sex workers for nailing officers. “The Army has been demoralised and to an extent even the country. They (the portal) succeeded in both. There cannot be any doubt that a crime against the country has been committed,” Mr Fernandes said. Mr Fernandes, who is the NDA Convener, said his party colleagues were of the view that government should register a case against the portal under the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (SITA). Claiming that he knew of the methods used by the portal in its expose on fictitious defence deals, Mr Fernandes recalled that he had told Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at a Cabinet meeting on March 13 last that the government should have no fears regarding the functioning of the Defence Ministry despite the expose. The Samata Party today said the use of sex workers by Tehelka.com during its investigation into shady arms deal as revealed by the Venkataswamy Commission made a mockery of investigative journalism, and demanded the arrest of the portal’s team under the Immoral Trafficking Act. Samata Party General Secretary Shambhu Sharan Srivastava said here that the commission should first of all investigate the conduct of the Tehelka journalists. “It has substantiated our position that the team was nothing but a bunch of blackmailers masquerading as journalists.”  |
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Tejpal justifies use of sex, sleaze New Delhi, August 22 “Tehelka’s story is about rampant corruption in governance. It is not about anybody’s private life and sexual peccadilloes. In the early course of the investigation, the reporters were forced to push the rules of the game when key officers began to routinely demand other services apart from The sex and sleaze part of the Tehelka expose was not part of the original tapes which was beamed across television channels in March this year showing pictures of politicians and Army officers accepting money from reporters who masqueraded as arms agents. The Tehelka CEO, Mr Tejpal, maintained that the portal never suppressed the evidence and it was given to the Army five months ago as also to the Venkataswami Commission three months ago. “It (the tapes) were sensitive to the Army and its image and we took an ethical decision to not put them in the public domain. In fact the Army had informally requested Tehelka not to release these few tapes, which we acceded to”, he said. When asked whether the mode of investigation did not go against ethics of professional journalism, he said the acts were purely in public and national interest. “If some boundaries have been inadvertently pushed, the situation and context demanded it”, Mr Tejpal said in defence of the sleaze operation where reporters acted as pimps for Army officers. The transcripts reportedly contain tell-tale videotapes of Army officers being entrapped by arms agents (Tehelka reporters) by luring them with call girls. Meanwhile, the Venkataswami Commission probing the Tehelka expose took strong exception to the news report and said that it will decide tomorrow on the course of action against reporting of such items. Meanwhile, top brass of the Army today began a fresh scrutiny of Tehelka tapes and documents to see whether more officers could be involved in the defence deal expose in the light of reports that the web portal had used services of sex workers in the sting operation. The scrutiny was being carried out by the Adjutant General and Military Secretary’s branch of the Army headquarters, according to highly placed Army sources. The sources said the role of 10 to 14 more officers posted at Army headquarters was being scrutinised. A Defence Ministry spokesman when asked to comment on the new Tehelka reports, declined comments saying the whole issue was under investigation by a judicial commission. |
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Congress defends Tehelka modus operandi New Delhi, August 22 Replying to questions by mediapersons, Chief spokesman for the AICC S. Jaipal Reddy said the then President of the BJP, Mr Bangaru Laxman, and his counterpart of the Samata Party, Mrs Jaya Jaitley were shown on videotape taking bribes. Mrs Jaitley had done it in the official residence of the then Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes. But no ‘FIR’ had been filed against them. The charge could not be brushed aside. It was still relevant, he said. Asked about the Tehelka.com’s use of callgirls for its sting operation, he said it was for the media to think about it. The Congress would not sit in judgement on the matter. The Congress had not taken any legalistic view on the demand for the arrest of Tarun Tejpal, he said, replying to another question. Meanwhile, the Congress today said it was opposed to appointment of Mr P. A. Sangma as government’s negotiator for the North-East. Mr Reddy said the Congress Chief Ministers of three states in the North-East had conveyed to the party high-command their opposition to appointment of a person from North-East as negotiator. “The Chief Minister have expressed the opinion that any person from the North-East cannot display objectivity in dealing with problems of the region,” the spokesman said. He maintained that the North-East was characterised by ethnic diversity and complexity and any person from that region would be liable to subjectivity. When asked about the reported statement of Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi about the need for appointing a person from North-East as negotiator since he would understand the region better, the spokesman said the three Chief Ministers had conveyed their united opinion to the high command.
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