NEW DELHI -- India said on Thursday it would investigate a news website's use of prostitutes in a hidden-camera operation that exposed widespread graft and influence-peddling in defense procurement.
"The Home (interior) Ministry will fully investigate if anyone has broken the law to collect news in the name of investigative journalism," parliamentary affairs minister Pramod Mahajan said. "Very strict action will be taken against them."
The scandal over secretly shot footage by journalists posing as arms dealers plunged the government of Atal Behari Vajpayee into a deep crisis in March and forced the defense minister and two ruling coalition party chiefs to resign.
A sleazy twist to the tale emerged on Wednesday, with revelations that the website had filmed army officers demanding sex with prostitutes from its journalists.
That provoked angry calls by political parties -- in particular, one that was implicated in the affair -- for Tehelka to be prosecuted under the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act.
George Fernandes, who quit as defence minister over the affair, said the army had been demoralized by the smut and there was no doubt "a crime against the country" had been committed.
Mahajan, whose Bharatiya Janata Party was deeply embarrassed by footage showing its president taking a bundle of banknotes from the Tehelka journalists, was quick to respond.
"The country has the right to information and journalists have the right to investigate and collect news, but they have no right to break any laws," he told the lower house of parliament.
"If in the name of investigative journalism we begin to back methods such as use of money and women to induce people it can set a very dangerous trend."
Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal said the decision to launch an investigation was an attempt to deflect attention.
"People who exposed corruption are being targeted while those who were exposed are going scot free," he told Reuters. "It is a statement on the level our social and public life has sunk to."
In March, Tehelka released several hours of footage which showed a string of politicians, military officials and bureaucrats apparently taking money to swing what was actually a fictional deal for thermal imaging equipment.
Many hours of tape were never released. But copies of everything -- including footage of military brass asking for sexual favours and even one officer having sex with a prostitute -- were handed over to a commission of inquiry and the army.
Tejpal said his reporters had to go along with the officers' demands to avoid blowing their cover at the early stages of a sting operation that took several months to put together.
And even if the methods of his sting raised questions, the footage underlined just how far army officers were steeped in corruption. "For a couple of hours with a woman they are willing to...do deals," Tejpal said.
Opposition parties seemed to agree with those views.
"Tehelka may have used reprehensible methods but we need action against those involved in national security...those who are playing with the lives of our troops," Madhavrao Scindia of the main opposition party, Congress, told parliament.
Bangaru Laxman -- former president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party who quit after Tehelka's tapes showed him accepting a wad of currency from the website's journalists -- said the latest twist to the scandal had vindicated his stance that Tehelka's credibility was at question.
"I had said it was not a pure journalistic effort to bring out the truth but part of a larger conspiracy at the instance of someone to destabilise the government and demoralise the armed forces," Laxman told a local television news channel.
The Indian Express newspaper, which broke the sex story on Wednesday, said in an editorial Tehelka had transgressed the limits of acceptable journalism. But it was also critical of lawmakers who were now focusing on that aspect of the affair.
"In their hurry to demand the arrest of the Tehelka managing editor, the MPs seem to forget that the implications of Armsgate were extremely grave and need to be urgently addressed," it said.
