Cash-for-query: Delhi cops get 2 months to book MPs

The High Court on Monday slammed the Delhi Police for failing to probe the role of 11 MPs caught on camera...

The High Court on Monday slammed the Delhi Police for failing to probe the role of 11 MPs caught on camera by a private channel allegedly taking money to raise questions in Parliament.

Giving the police an ultimatum of 60 days to complete the investigation into the allegations — termed cash-for-query scam’ — Justice S N Dhingra took it to task for registering an FIR against “select persons” only. “The police cannot book only middlemen and mediapersons and leave the real recipients of bribe untouched. This would give cause to the people to believe that giving and taking bribe is a privilege of members of Legislature,” the court observed.

The order came on a plea by Anirudha Bahal, Editor-in-Chief of CobraPost, which conducted the sting, that the FIR be quashed as it targeted the journalists who “exposed corruption” rather than the MPs who allegedly took the bribe.

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“It is a pity that police of this country has lost its eyes and ears. The whole country had watched the sting operation but the police seems to have no eyes and no ears,” Justice S N Dhingra said while directing the police not to single out “some persons” and leave out the MPs.

It is the obligation of Delhi Police to book all those persons involved in the offence of taking money for raising questions in Parliament, the court said. The court noted that it was obligatory on the part of the police to investigate a crime in full and not in a “piecemeal” fashion.

“The police is directed to book all those involved in the offence of taking bribe and their middlemen, and get them punished according to the law,” the court said. It declined to quash the FIR against the scribes, saying that it was an admitted fact that a cognisable offence had been committed.

Eleven MPs — 10 from the Lok Sabha and one from Rajya Sabha — were expelled from Parliament in December 2005 after a TV channel showed them taking bribe for asking questions in the House.

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