NEW DELHI, 2 July 2004 — After the much-publicized “Operation West End,” Tarun Tejpal’s Tehelka newspaper is again in the limelight. The newspaper used a hidden camera to catch a government doctor taking bribe in return for issuing a fake mental certificate.
Tehelka newspaper senior correspondent, Jamshed Khan obtained a fake mentally-incompetent certificate in the name of his medically-fit wife Kavita by paying 10,000 rupees to Dr. S.K. Gupta, a senior psychiatrist with the Agra mental hospital, the largest in India.
Jamshed told the doctor that he was a travel agent staying in Delhi and he needed the certificate to divorce his wife.
Dr. Gupta issued the certificate quickly without even meeting Jamshed’s wife. The doctor assured the correspondent that he was also willing to go before the court if required in defense of the certificate’s contents.
The doctor also admitted, on tape, of issuing more than 10 such certificates to help husbands obtain divorces, usually so that the man could re-marry.
Jamshed interviewed several women who were victims of Dr. Gupta’s certificates, all declared mentally unstable by the doctor and their respective husbands. Since Agra mental hospital is government funded, the court accepted the certificates and granted the divorce applications filed by the husbands.
Releasing the video tape before the crowded press conference yesterday, the newspaper’s chief editor, Tarun Tejpal, appreciated the work done by his correspondent and said that it will certainly help in weeding out corruption from society.
He said that Tehelka will file a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court in the coming days to seek damages for each of Dr. Gupta’s victims.
Tejpal also demanded a thorough probe into the case and said that action should be taken against all the guilty parties to curb the menace.
Jamshed, while talking to Arab News, said, “The story took almost five months to complete, but I never hesitated or felt afraid of doing it for the sake of innocent women.”
