Sound and fury, not much else

Sound and fury, not much else
Manoj Mitta

Given their unparalleled impact, the Tehelka tapes have been hailed as an example of investigative journalism. But when those very tapes are put through a judicial scrutiny, the standards they have to measure up to are different. So different that the proposed commission of inquiry may, to the disappointment of many, turn out to be an anti-climax. Little wonder then that the government announced the inquiry so promptly. And the Supreme Court, equally promptly, declined to spare any sitting judge for an assignment so politically surcharged.

The very scope of the inquiry is bound to be a contentious issue before the commission. The terms of reference simply say that the commission will inquire into "the transactions relating to defence and other procurements referred to in the said videotape". It is, of course, clear that the videotape in question cannot be just the part made public -- the compactly edited 270-minute version -- because of the possibility of its being doctored or spliced. And, if the commission is going to wade through all the 100 hours of the sting operation, then there is a strong possibility of some more allegations surfacing. The additional allegations will naturally include the one that has already come to light against the home ministry over an apparently non-existent border fencing deal. This allegation against the home ministry was divulged at a press conference in Thiruvananthapuram by a member of Tehelka's investigative team. But, when the home ministry threatened to take legal action for that baseless allegation,Tehelka's editor in chief Tarun Tejpal gave a written clarification that the border fencing deal had been kept out of the edited version because it was not "substantiated".

The implication of Tejpal's clarification is that, by his standards of investigative journalism, the allegations contained in the edited version are all substantiated. In reality, there is nothing in those edited tapes to bear out such an assessment. We just have, for instance, the then Samata Party treasurer, R.K. Jain, saying that George Fernandes got a kickback from Israel for forcing the Barak missile system on the navy. What evidence does Tehelka offer to substantiate this very damaging allegation? Nothing. How can the commission give any credence to Jain's allegation when the government counters it by detailing the perfectly legitimate circumstances in which the Barak system was purchased? The commission's mandate is to find out whether the transactions related to defence and other procurements "have been carried out in terms of the prescribed procedure". Though the Tehelka tape has thrown up a lot of dirt, it makes no attempt to give any cogent account of where and how the prescribed procedure for anyprocurement has been transgressed.

The evidence, such as it is, can hardly help the commission give any definite findings on the question whether any "illicit gains" have been made by anybody and "if so, to what extent". In any case, a commission cannot really take over the role of an investigative agency such as the CBI and dig out details of payoffs. It will have to go strictly by the evidence adduced before it. Regarding the payoffs, the only evidence Tehelka has provided is of its own attempts to sell non-existent hand held thermal cameras to the army. The commission can at best go into the string of petty payments made by Tehelka in the guise of a defence equipment dealer -- West End International -- to army officers, defence ministry officials and politicians. As a result of these payoffs, Tehelka claims that West End received a letter from the defence ministry inviting it to submit its product for evaluation.

The commission may, as per its terms of reference, give a finding on whether the defence establishment violated the prescribed procedure while expressing interest to a fictitious company about a non-existent product. As a natural corollary, the commission may also address the question that has paralysed Parliament for days on end: whether the payments of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh allegedly made to Bangaru Laxman and Jaya Jaitly, respectively, were meant to be a quid pro quo for a future defence transaction. With the available evidence, the commission is unlikely to come up with any revelation about the trio from Vajpayee's circle, Brajesh Mishra, N.K. Singh and Ranjan Bhattacharya. Tehelka did not "trap" any of them. Nor has it otherwise unearthed any material to implicate them in any deal, real or fictitious.

For all the plaudits it received, Tehelka itself may come under the scrutiny of the commission for its sting operation. This is because the terms of reference offer a carte blanche to the commission. Besides dealing with the defence deals, the commission can probe even into "the making of these allegations". In other words, it can verify the BJP's allegation that Tehelka's sting operation was the result of a political conspiracy to discredit the Vajpayee administration. Whatever the course of the inquiry, it can safely be said that the Tehelka tapes cannot be unravelled in the promised span of four months.

The evidence can hardly help the commission give any definite findings on `illicit gains'