INDIA: Case against journalists who 'stung' 11 MPs

Journalists charged with abetting scam for pretending to be part of a business association and approaching middlemen

The Times of India
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

By Manoj Mitta

New Delhi --- In an ironic twist to the 2005 cash-for-questions scam, the Delhi Police have chargesheeted the two journalists who had conducted the sting operation that led to the historic expulsion of 11 MPs. This unprecedented action against Aniruddha Bahal and Suhasini Raj of cobrapost.com is despite a Lok Sabha committee's clean chit to the duo and the Supreme Court's endorsement of Parliament's decision to expel the exposed MPs.

Though the FIR lodged in 2007 was confined to the only affected MP from Rajya Sabha, Chattarpal Singh Lodha, the chargesheet filed about a month ago before a trial court also arraigned nine of the 10 Lok Sabha MPs figuring in the scam. Since the then BSP MP Rajaram Pal has been re-elected to this Lok Sabha on a Congress ticket, the police are awaiting the Speaker's sanction to prosecute him.

While the 10 ex-MPs have been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act for taking money to raise questions in Parliament, the two journalists have been accused of abetting the offence by approaching certain middlemen under the guise of a business association.

Date Posted: 8/12/2009