Government will hold an inquiry and take stern action against tehelka.com if the portal is found to have violated the law by adopting illegal and immoral methods for its sting operation to expose corruption in defence deals, parliamentary affairs minister Pramod Mahajan told the Lok Sabha on Thursday. No one including MPs and journalists are above the law. Everybody is equal before the law, Mahajan said after an impromptu debate on a newspaper report that prostitutes were used by the portal to nail army officers.
He said the home ministry would go into the matter and hold an inquiry to find out if anyone had broken the law. Amid strong protests from congress and other Opposition benches, Mahajan gave a clean chit to George Fernandes, who had resigned as defence minister in the wake of tehelka expose, saying in my opinion he is innocent. But this would be decided by the Venkataswami Commission probing the issue, he added.
Raising the issue during zero hour, former prime minister Chandra Shekhar attacked the portal for adopting undignified and immoral ways to get information which, he said, would only demoralise security forces and also lower the prestige of the country. Joining the former prime minister in disapproving the methods adopted by tehelka, congress deputy leader Madhavrao Scindia and CPI-M leader Somnath Chatterjee, however, said the country could not forget the sleazy and seamy revelations made by the portal in exposing corruption in defence deals.
Stressing that the press was an important organ of parliamentary democracy and that it had full freedom, Mahajan said all sections of the house were critical of the illegal means resorted to by the portal to get news. At the same time, he did not spare those who had fallen prey to allurements offered by the portal saying the law would take its own course and the offenders would be punished.
He did not want to go into other controversial aspects raised by the Opposition, Mahajan said adding the commission was looking into them.
Referring to newspaper reports quoting tehelka chief Tarun Tejpal that he had not committed any mistake by indulging in the methods the portal adopted to get information, Mahajan said prima facie it appeared that immoral methods were adopted.
Mahajan`s remark that Fernandes in his opinion was innocent drew instant protests from the opposition with Congress chief whip Priyaranjan Dasmunsi taking strong exception to it and saying a commission of inquiry was probing the matter. Bureau Report