The Bharatiya Janata Party was reduced to a minority when all the political parties in Vidhan Sabha approved an interim report of the House panel holding a media house guilty for contempt of House and demanded action against it.
The media house that also runs a news channel had carried out a sting operation post Muzaffarnagar riots showing senior minister Md Azam Khan behind this pogrom that has left 42 dead and rendered over 10, 000 homeless.
leader of the BJP legislature party Hukum Singh said that the proceedings against the media group should be kept on hold till the Parliament committee, which is also probing the matter, gives its final report. The BJP members also trooped into the well of the House in protest after the proposal was adopted by voice vote. The BJP has already boycotted the probe committee and even questioned its legality.
BSP, Congress and RlD supported the government's view that the media group has violated the norms by not giving the raw video footage of the sting and even not sending the reporter and the camera person before the committee who were responsible for it. The probe committee chairman Satish Nigam said that the TV channel did not co-operate with them. "We had asked the channel head to send us the raw footage as well as had summoned the reporter and the cameraman to appear before the committee. Neither the footage was provided nor reporters appeared before us," he said.
leader of opposition Swami Prasad Maurya said that truth should come to the fore. The House has unanimously approved constitution of this committee and we should accept the interim report. let the truth prevail. If minister is wrong he should be punished and if channel has fabricated the story to get TRP action should be taken against it, he said. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was present in the house when the recommendation was approved.
The Vidhan Sabha had unanimously decided to set up a House panel to probe the sting operation by a TV channel that blamed senior minister Md Azam Khan for 'delaying action' during the large-scale communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar. The probe committee was constituted on September 18 last and till date it had held five meetings.
According to the sting operation two inspectors posted at Budhana and Fugana police stations of Muzaffarnagar were shown in the video claiming that action to contain violence was 'delayed under political pressure'. These two officers were transferred after the video was aired by TV channels. In a similar incident during previous Samajwadi Party regime in 2003-2007, CNN-IBN managing editor Rajdeep Sardesai was summoned to appear in the UP assembly on charge of contempt of House in connection with a sting operation.
The then Mulayam Singh Yadav government had taken serious note over Sardesai's "non-cooperation" in the probe of the House committee in a sting operation telecast by the channel on February 15, 2006 involving three state MlAs.