It would have been hard to miss, Delhi has been embroiled in the fall out from a TV 'sting' operation to expose a Delhi teacher's prostitution racket out of a government run school.

The short story and the outcome:

• TV Live (India) Pvt Ltd ran the 'sting' story on how Delhi teacher, Uma Khurana, was allegedely forcing her students into prostitution
• Acting on the reporting alone, she had been dismissed by the Education Department, arrested and charged under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act
• After Mrs Khurana experienced humiliation, jail time, and violence, it has since been discovered that this was an elaborate setup by Veerendra Arora, a businessman, who wanted to settle a financial score

The outcome: A time.com's front page story, appropriately titled 'Does India's Media Go Too Far'

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1661070,00.html. And finally, belated inquiries into this debacle.

Public discussion has already moved on to the High Court asking the Government to inform it about the provisions for regulating sting operations in the Broadcasting Bill. Regulating irresponsible journalism is a good thing. However, this has removed the focus from the shrill and self righteous who are allowed to circumvent legal processes. How about some public interest litigation into provisions for accosting mobbers and their exhorters?