New Delhi, Aug. 22 :    New Delhi, Aug. 22:  Wine had flowed for all to see on television. There were women, too, supplied by Tehelka, apparently on demand from army officers. It was revealed today that the dotcom had used prostitutes to swing fictitious deals with defence officials during its sting operation. The news, in The Indian Express this morning, provoked a furore in the Lok Sabha with members, particularly those from the ruling coalition, demanding the arrest of the team involved in the filming of the tapes. Samata Party MPs rallied around George Fernandes, who had to resign following the March exposé, and stalled proceedings. Some BJP members requested leaders of allied parties to go on television and support Fernandes. Desam parliamentary party leader K. Yerran Naidu, sources said, refused to oblige. Fernandes said the portal, by using prostitutes to nail officers, had committed a 'crime against the country by demoralising' the army. 'There cannot be any doubt that a crime against the country has been committed,' he said. The former minister and his supporters in the coalition are miffed with the slow progress of the investigation by the Venkataswami Commission into the Tehelka revelations. Fernandes, the sources said, had initially thought he would be reinducted into the Cabinet in July after the panel submitted an interim report. But that did not happen. The sources added that Fernandes is peeved with the commission for first trying to examine the dubious defence deals instead of investigating the sting operators and ascertaining the credibility of the tapes. The Samata leader betrayed a hint of impatience when he said the commission could take years to submit its report. In a veiled suggestion that the probe is jeopardising the nation's security, Fernandes told reporters that many key defence purchases had been held up because the files were before the commission. 'The purchase of Advanced Jet Trainers (AJTs) for training pilots has not been effected since the files are before the commission. Several pilots have been killed in the absence of AJTs. Second, officials are unwilling to look into the files (in the wake of the exposé),' he said. However, the commission may not take kindly to news leaking out that prostitutes had been used by Tehelka to trap army officers. Many hours of footage were never released, but copies of everything the website's journalists filmed with their hidden camera were handed over to the commission and the army. Tehelka chief Tarun Tejpal said the unscreened footage did indeed show military officers asking for sexual favours and even one officer having sex with a prostitute. The report kicked off a debate on media ethics and privacy with the Samata MPs demanding Tejpal's arrest. The House had to be adjourned after the NDA members repeatedly rushed to the well demanding action against the dotcom. Tejpal scoffed at the politicians' demand, saying they were trying to shift the focus away from the investigation into the corrupt defence deal. Fernandes said his party colleagues felt the government should register a case against Tehelka under the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (SITA). 'I am told (by my party colleagues) that this is a serious criminal offence under SITA,' he said. He, however, parried a question that the sting operation had exposed certain army officials who had accepted money in fictitious deals. 'The portal is justifying its operations. I have edited quite a few journals. I did not know that journalism could be such,' Fernandes said. Legal sources said the Tehelka investigators could be arrested under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and SITA. But, they pointed out, for the case to sustain against the sting operators, the government would also have to lodge FIRs against those who took favours from the Tehelka team members who had posed as arms middlemen. Among those against whom FIRs would have to be lodged are then BJP president Bangaru Laxman, who was seen in the tapes as accepting Rs 1 lakh in cash, and Jaya Jaitly, who was the chief of the Samata Party when the scandal erupted, for the same reason. Fernandes said he knew of the methods used by the portal. He added that he had told the Prime Minister at a Cabinet meeting on March 13 that the government should have no fears on the functioning of the defence ministry despite the exposé. 'I knew from the beginning what they had resorted to.'