Cash-for-vote: SC ruling may provide breather to Kulkarni

Now that the Supreme Court has dismissed Delhi police's appeal to prosecute two journalists for conducting a sting operation in 2005, the police are standing on flimsy grounds in their 2008 cash for votes scam investigations.

The dismissal has also raised hopes for Sudheendra Kulkarni, former aide to senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani, in his bail hearing, which will come up on Friday.

The SC had practically endorsed the sting journalism, when they dismissed the police's bid of prosecuting journalists Aniruddha Bahal and Suhasini Raj of cobrapost.com for their role in exposing MPs accepting bribes to ask questions in Parliament.

The police had said claimed that the journalists required to take investigating agencies into confidence before conducting sting operations, but the SC upheld the high court's view that this needn't be done as the respective MPs may have been cautioned.

The Supreme Court dismissal may well serve as a breather for Kulkarni, who claims he is a 'whistle-blower' in the case.

Kulkarni's lawyer, Mahipal Singh, told rediff.com that in his bail application he had mentioned the 2010 Delhi high court ruling that corruption can be exposed by undercover journalists.

"I expect the bail to come through as I don't understand the basis for his arrest. He is a mere witness in the case, instead of an accused. CNN-IBN, which conducted the sting to expose the scam, had information, but had no evidence. That is where Kulkarni came in. He facilitated that evidence for the channel," Singh said.

"The police's argument that Kulkarni should have taken investigating authorities into confidence before the sting operation is highly impractical. His aim was to expose the horse-trading going on in the Parliament and secrecy was the gist of the sting operation. It is impractical for the prosecution to expect him to go to the CBI or the police," Singh said.

When asked about the prosecution's argument that not even a single aspect shows that Kulkarni is actually a whistleblower, Singh said, "He wore recording devices to expose horse-trading. If he was not a whistle-blower and stood to gain monetary benefits, then why would he do that? Isn't that evidence enough?" Singh says.

Singh also rubbished the prosecutions claims that Kulkarni had not informed the party leadership about the sting operation.

"See, Kulkarni had information on horse-trading in the Parliament and wrote several newspaper articles on this. CNN-IBN had information about this, but had no proof, so they approached (Arun) Jaitley. It was Jaitley who had suggested to CNN-IBN that Kulkarni can provide them with the evidence they needed. The party leadership was fully aware of the sting operation," Singh also said.

"LK Advani has openly said in the Parliament that the sting operation was his. How can the prosecution say that the party leadership was not aware? Which BJP leader has denied that they were not aware of the sting?" Singh added.

The Delhi police had charge sheeted Kulkarni as the 'mastermind' behind the entire operation.

"How can that be? As I said earlier, he was there just to facilitate evidence for CNN-IBN. He was chosen by the party-leadership to provide this. He is a man of great integrity and the party trusted him completely," Singh said.

The question of the source of money still remains unanswered and if Singh is to be believed, the police are deliberately not focusing on it.

"They (Delhi police) are deliberately not investigating the source of money in the case. If they do, the names of the ruling alliance will come out. Think about it -- who benefited from the votes? Whose government was to be saved -- Amar Singh's or the UPA's? The UPA government is still in power probably because of those votes. And inspite of a sting operation exposing this, the source of money still remains untraced and whistle-blowers are being arrested," Singh said.