By Manoj Mitta, TNN Oct 18, 2011, 04.14AM IST
NEW DELHI: Five years after it had upheld the expulsion of 11 MPs in the cash-for-questions scam, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the Delhi police's bid to prosecute the two journalists who had conducted the sting operation.
As a corollary, a 2010 Delhi high court ruling that corruption can be exposed by undercover journalists without informing authorities has attained finality.
A bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam dismissed the special leave petition filed by the police against the high court verdict quashing the charge sheet in relation to Aniruddha Bahal and Suhasini Raj of cobrapost.com.
The SC agreed with the HC view that if the journalists had taken the police into confidence about their operation to expose MPs accepting bribes to ask questions in Parliament, "the respective MPs would have been given information by the police beforehand and would have been cautioned about the entire operation."
This has scuttled the police's attempt to prosecute the journalists along with the MPs and middlemen on account of their alleged failure to act as complainants before the story titled "Operation Duryodhan" was aired in December 2005. The police had tried to implicate the journalists on the ground that every person aware of the commission of an offence was obliged to inform the nearest police officer.
The implication of the SC's decision is that undercover journalists can well claim immunity under Section 24 of the Prevention of Corruption Act which stipulates that a statement made somebody who offered a bribe to a public servant "shall not subject such person to a prosecution" on the charge of abetting the offence. This is the first time the SC was to decide if they should be tried.
(TOI STORY)
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-10-18/india/30296637_1_suhasini-raj-sting-operation-sting-journalism
NEW DELHI: Five years after it had upheld the expulsion of 11 MPs in the cash-for-questions scam, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the Delhi police's bid to prosecute the two journalists who had conducted the sting operation.
As a corollary, a 2010 Delhi high court ruling that corruption can be exposed by undercover journalists without informing authorities has attained finality.
A bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam dismissed the special leave petition filed by the police against the high court verdict quashing the charge sheet in relation to Aniruddha Bahal and Suhasini Raj of cobrapost.com.
The SC agreed with the HC view that if the journalists had taken the police into confidence about their operation to expose MPs accepting bribes to ask questions in Parliament, "the respective MPs would have been given information by the police beforehand and would have been cautioned about the entire operation."
This has scuttled the police's attempt to prosecute the journalists along with the MPs and middlemen on account of their alleged failure to act as complainants before the story titled "Operation Duryodhan" was aired in December 2005. The police had tried to implicate the journalists on the ground that every person aware of the commission of an offence was obliged to inform the nearest police officer.
The implication of the SC's decision is that undercover journalists can well claim immunity under Section 24 of the Prevention of Corruption Act which stipulates that a statement made somebody who offered a bribe to a public servant "shall not subject such person to a prosecution" on the charge of abetting the offence. This is the first time the SC was to decide if they should be tried.
(TOI STORY)
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-10-18/india/30296637_1_suhasini-raj-sting-operation-sting-journalism
No comments:
Post a Comment