New Delhi, March 14: The question of whether impersonation sting journalism involving a fictitious transaction of money or some form of gratification could make the person exposed guilty of wrong-doing started off as a tricky one when the first undercover operation was done on erstwhile BJP president Bangaru Laxman in 2001 by tehelka.com.

Equally doubtful was the issue of whether the journalists who resorted to the sting medium were also liable for prosecution.

The judgment delivered by the CBI special judge on April 27, 2012, set the lingering doubt to rest.

Laxman, who passed away in March 2014, was found guilty under Section 9 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, of taking gratification for exercise of personal influence with a public servant and sentenced to four years' rigorous imprisonment.

Laxman, who was then 72, was specifically convicted for the offence of accepting illegal gratification when he was a Rajya Sabha member (and not as BJP president because it is not deemed to be a public office) to facilitate the grant of government contracts. He was sent to Delhi's Tihar jail.

The court dismissed Laxman's plea to make tehelka.com an accused, observing the journalists had acted "only" as whistleblowers. But it added that the method could be considered objectionable.

In 2001, two journalists of tehelka.com (as it was known before the news magazine was born) posed as arms dealers, videotaped Laxman accepting Rs 1 lakh as gratification for exercising his purported personal influence with the defence ministry to swing defence procurement from a fictitious company that promised to deliver a fictitious product to the country's defence forces.

The Tehelka journalists, Aniruddha Bahal and Mathew Samuel, posed as representatives of M/s West End International, London (a fictitious company) and the project was codenamed Operation West End.

The video was televised, rattling the NDA government led by BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The existence of a BJP-led dispensation at the Centre helped defer the filing of an FIR against Laxman. The government contended that it had already set up a commission of inquiry but the panel never submitted a report as long as Vajpayee ruled.

The UPA, voted to power in 2004, wound up the commission before it could give its report. In December 2006, the CBI filed an FIR and began investigations into the sting operation that led to a chargesheet against Laxman.

Laxman's principal contention was the sting operation was conducted in violation of his fundamental right to privacy and that he had been induced with Rs 1 lakh by the Tehelka team.

In his 155-page judgment, CBI special judge Kanwaljeet Arora said the method Tehelka adopted could be considered objectionable but the purpose was not.

Laxman argued that the evidence on record fell short of providing the necessary ingredients of the offence under Section 9 of the PCA. He stressed that he never claimed to have proximity with any public servant and the since the company and the product were fictitious, he could not have leveraged any influence to pull off a favour.

The judge interpreted Section 9 to make the point that it did not talk of any specific demand by the accused for illegal gratification. It specifically stated: "Whoever accepts or obtains or agrees to accept or attempts to obtain any gratification as a motive or rewards, for inducing by the exercise of personal influence any public servant, then he can be tried for an offence under this section." The operative phrase, he emphasised, was "acceptance of gratification".

Justice Arora observed: "No doubt, the company, West End International, and the product, HHTIs, which they were promoting were both fictitious, but this fact was only known to the representatives of the company, who had approached the convict for favour. Convict Bangaru Laxman had agreed to exert his personal influence in favour of the fictitious company for his personal gains by way of getting 'illegal gratification' with the intention and belief that the product for which a supply order is required is genuine." Section 9, he held, covered such acts.

Parsed, the judgment implied that Laxman's plea of the undercover job violating his privacy did not hold because at the time when the impersonating journalists called on him, he was not aware of whether they were genuine or fictitious.

Laxman contended that the phrase "personal influence" used in Section 9 suggested that the accused must be close enough with the public servant sought to be influenced, whereas there was no evidence to corroborate that he knew the public servant concerned personally.

The judge's reasoning was in this section, the word "personal" was a qualifying term for another word "influence". Therefore, the word "personal" should not be interpreted in a manner that the operative word "influence" loses its significance. In other words, the nature of the accused's relationship with a public servant was not germane.

Another line of defence was that the Rs 1 lakh Laxman received was given towards the BJP's fund for which a receipt was issued by the party office in favour of Samuel that he deliberately failed to collect.

The court's ruling was that Mathew had given the amount as a bribe to Laxman and so there was no question of collecting any receipt.

Moreover, it said Laxman could not have taken the money for the party fund as he was not the party treasurer.

While pronouncing the judgment, the judge pointed out that Laxman had subordinated national interest to his individual interests and had even agreed to compromise the safety and security of the nation.

He noted that as the president of a political party, Laxman was supposed to show exemplary character to lead by example, but he did not. "It is often said that the accomplice of the crime of corruption is generally our own indifference. The ' sab chalta hai (everything goes)' syndrome has led us to the present situation of where we are, where nothing moves without an illegal consideration....," the judge said.

Under Section 9 of the PCA, the prescribed punishment is for a minimum term of six months that may extend to five years with a penalty.

In October 2012, Delhi High Court granted bail to Laxman.

Vajpayee insisted Laxman should resign as the BJP president the day the sting was aired. He continued as a Rajya Sabha MP. When he was convicted, he quit the BJP's national executive too.

In appointing Laxman at the helm, the BJP had invested political capital in choosing a Dalit, its first Dalit. His tenure lasted a year.