Notes on Sting Operation for students of BJMC

Sting Operations

By Sr P. Michelle Mathias

A Sting operation is an operation implemented by undercover investigators in a covert manner to apprehend a person committing a crime through hidden or clandestine ways or through means of deception. Sting operations has led to many big-time criminals being caught red-handed. In some other cases, those doing undercover agent jobs have also lost their lives.

Sting operations are often accompanied by agents using false identities, hidden cameras in pens or buttons on clothes or in purses, etc.

The very nature of a sting operation is deception. A criminal is caught or proof is sought using deceptive means or pseudo identities. The intention of doing good using a sting is foreshadowed by deceptive means to achieve the goal, which is why, Sting operations often create an ethical and moral dilemma.

In India, there are two diverse opinions. In the article titled, ‘Are sting operations legal and moral’ by Vappala Balachandran for outlookindia.com (2019), she writes that  in India, a lawyer by name R.K.Anand was found guilty in connection with an expose case through a sting operation in July 2009. The Supreme court declared him guilty of criminal contempt. On the other hand, in another case in India, in April 2014, the Supreme court declared that Sting operations were not a legal method of law enforcement. The Court was of the opinion that perhaps the victim who could be otherwise innocent of a crime, lured into doing the crime by others. In the Unites States of America however, law is favourable towards sting operations as viable means of crime prevention.

The Supreme Court’s verdict has truth in it. There are many cases, wherein Sting operations have exposed criminal conspiracies, money rackets and bribery. However, there are also undercover investigators who do sting operations in order to derive sensational news and invade the privacy of citizens. This is an uncalled for act of deception. Given these happenings, Sting operations are categorised into two types. They are Positive Sting Operations and Negative Sting Operations.

Positive Sting Operations:

A Positive Sting operation does benefit to society by exposing the truth and eventually leading to the path of justice. For instance, the latest sting operations by Cobrapost, a non-profit news website that is known for its investigative journalism venture showed how around 36 Bollywood celebrities were willing to opine in favour of Political parties on their social networking platforms which have huge followership for huge sums of money.   

In another sting operation called Operation 136, they exposed many leading corporate News channels and Newspaper owners were willing to compromise with content, introduce communal content and speak on an issue for a price. This amount was huge. It was a serious piece of good sting operation.

Journalism is the fourth Pillar of the Indian Society. This pillar is to lead the way. However, the need for monetary gains has led most of them to compromise with the content. This is injustice to the millions of readers who watch these channels or read these newspapers as authentic sources of Information. Sting Operations like those done by Cobrapost are beneficial to the citizens of the country who deserve to know the truth.

 Negative Sting Operations:

A negative Sting Operation does harm to Society and particularly to the individual whose name gets dragged into controversy. There are cases where TV channels have gone to extremes to gain mileage by using Sting Operations for sensationalised Journalism.

For instance, In India there was the case of a teacher named Uma Khurana, who was allegedly “exposed” by a TV channel named ‘Live India’ for a sex racket which she ran by luring her pupils. Yogendra Aldak in his article, ‘Sting Operation-to be or not to be in India’ on legalserviceindia.com writes that this accusation turned out to be totally false and The Delhi High Court issued notices to the Delhi Government and City Police after taking suo motu cognisance of media reports alleging that a sting operation carried out by a TV channel. The poor teacher had a threat to life and was totally robbed of her dignity. This was a grave harm done to her by the TV channel and the State and Police who permitted this to happen.