(RSF/IFEX) – RSF protested the search carried out at the head office of the website Tehelka.com. “The fact that this search was conducted on the very same day that the website’s editor was due to give evidence of capital importance in an inquiry into a corruption scandal shows that the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI] […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF protested the search carried out at the head office of the website Tehelka.com. “The fact that this search was conducted on the very same day that the website’s editor was due to give evidence of capital importance in an inquiry into a corruption scandal shows that the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI] and the government are stepping up the pressure that has been exerted on the management of Tehelka.com for more than a year,” says RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. RSF has written to Interior Minister Lal Krishna Advani calling for an end to the harassment to which Tehelka.com has been subjected.
According to information obtained by the organisation, about twenty CBI officers carried out a search of Tehelka.com’s head office in New Delhi on 26 June 2002. They also searched the home of one of the website’s journalists, Kumar Badal. He is accused by the CBI of having paid poachers to kill and film two leopards apparently belonging to a protected species in the Saharanpur jungle (in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh). According to witnesses, however, the CBI has been unable to produce any documents relating to the case from among those seized during the search. On the other hand, officers apparently confiscated documents concerning the founding of the website, notably e-mails received from Shankar Sharma, owner of First Global, who provided the initial financing for the website and today is in prison although no evidence has been produced against him.
In addition, the search was carried out just hours before the site’s editor-in-chief, Tarun Tejpal, was due to give evidence before the Venkataswami Commission. This commission was set up by the government to investigate a corruption scandal uncovered by the website in March 2001, which led to the resignations of Defence Minister Georges Fernandes and the president of the Hindu nationalist party, Bangaru Laxman. Tejpal’s hearing, scheduled on the same day as that of the Samata party’s former president, Jaya Jaitly – who is suspected of acting as an intermediary between arms dealers and people close to the former defence minister – was postponed. According to Kavin Gulati, the lawyer acting on behalf of the website, the inquiry had reached a “crucial stage in the cross-examination” of the witnesses, leading him to conclude that the date of the search was chosen “deliberately.” A CBI spokesman retorted that it was “pure coincidence.”
Tehelka.com has specialised in investigative journalism, notably corruption cases, from the moment it was launched. Since its pages have been updated to include articles about the arms bribery scandal, the portal has been subjected to harassment by government agencies and more recently by the tax department.
