Sting Operations - Are they Necesary?

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has rejected a plea for putting curbs on the media and television channels from conducting sting operations. It held that any attempt to control and regulate the media from outside was likely to cause more harm than good.

A Bench consisting of Justices B.N. Agrawal, G.S. Singhvi and Aftab Alam, in its 175-page judgment in the ‘R.K. Anand’ case, said: “It is not our intent here to lay down any reformist agenda for the media. The norms to regulate the media and to raise its professional standards must come from inside.”

On the sting operations conducted by NDTV, the Bench said that despite its faults, the telecast of the programme rendered valuable service to the important public cause to protect and salvage the purity of the course of justice and the operation could not be said to be a trial by the media.

Writing the judgment, Justice Alam said: “The programme may have any other fault or weakness but it certainly did not interfere with or obstruct the due course of the BMW [hit-and-run case] trial. The programme telecast by NDTV showed to the people [the courts not excluded] that a conspiracy was afoot to undermine the BMW trial. What was shown was proved to be substantially true and accurate. The programme was thus clearly intended to prevent the attempt to interfere with or obstruct the due course of the BMW trial.”

On the plea for getting prior permission of the court for conducting such sting operations, the Bench said: “Such a course would not be an exercise in journalism but in that case the media would be acting as some sort of special vigilance agency for the court. On a little consideration, the idea appears to be quite repugnant both from the points of view of the court and the media. It would be a sad day for the court to employ the media for setting its own house in order; and media too would certainly not relish the role of being the snoopers for the court.”

The court said: “Moreover, to insist that a report concerning a pending trial may be published or a sting operation concerning a trial may be done only subject to the prior consent and permission of the court would tantamount to pre-censorship of reporting of court proceedings. And this would be plainly an infraction under Article 19 (1) of the Constitution.”

Trust, confidence


The Bench expressed concern at the falling professional norms among lawyers. “We strongly feel that unless the trend is immediately arrested and reversed, it will have very deleterious consequences for administration of justice in the country. No judicial system in a democratic society can work satisfactorily unless it is supported by a Bar that enjoys the unqualified trust and confidence of the people and whose members are monetarily accessible and affordable to the people.

“The Bar Council of India and the Bar Councils of the different States cannot escape their responsibility in this regard. The Bar Council [s] has consistently fought to safeguard the interests of lawyers and it has done a lot of good work for their welfare. But on the issue of maintaining high professional standards and enforcing discipline among lawyers its performance hardly matches its achievements in other areas.

“It has not shown much concern even to see that lawyers should observe the statutory norms prescribed by the Council itself. We hope and trust that the Council will at least now sit up and pay proper attention to the restoration of the high professional standards among lawyers worthy of their position in the judicial system and in society.”

When the state police is under the thumb of the state government and the CBI is under the thumb of the centre you cannot expect unbiased investigation from these agencies.
Under the circumstances, a sting operation by the watchdog,media, is the only solution.
But they should do it and present it decently without any extraneous effects.
We are bored of the "Breaking News" blast we receive from all TV channels.
Further, these TV channels edit and put words in the mouth of the actors in the news which they had not uttered.Sometime back, India TV was fined Rs 1.0 lakhs for doing just that.

There have been cases where the channel does sting operation and then black mail the affected parties to cough up hefty sums of money "OR ELSE".

Sting operations serve a purpose if they are for the public good, are presented decently and there is no ulterior motive.