Is there a rift between the Intelligence Bureau and Central Bureau of Investigation? Was the Ishrat Jahan encounter fake or real? Did a certain IB officer refer to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as “safed daadhi” and his aide Amit Shah as “kaali daadhi”? Primetime debates have been brimming with these questions for the last two weeks. Not because CBI filed a chargesheet on July 3, 2013 terming the Ishrat Jahan encounter as fake, but because an “exposé” was done by Tehelka’s Rana Ayyub a week earlier on what the CBI was going to say in its chargesheet and what evidence it had in its possession. The “investigation” by Ayyub has become fodder for news channels and a political hot potato for party spokespersons.

But the million dollar question is – Is the “exposé” a result of a painstaking investigation? What constitutes an exposé and investigative journalism? Can leaks and scoops be termed as investigation? Newslaundry asked these questions to some of the country’s most well-known investigative journalists. Here’s what they had to say.

Speaking to Newslaundry, Chitra Subramaniam Duella – who was instrumental in investigating the Bofors story – said that “without casting any aspersions on the story or the reporter, I can say this much. I know for a fact that CBI plants stories. I know for a fact that it buries evidence depending on who is in power. I know it leaks documents selectively to journalists to slander other journalists. The CBI has been destroyed by its masters – I don’t take the CBI seriously and I believe I am not alone. This is unfortunate because there are very good officers in that organisation. In this scenario, scoops from the CBI have to be taken with a pinch of salt. The media and the CBI tend to chase each other, instead of the story. I also find it odd that it’s called the Ishrat Jahan case considering there were four people who were killed. How the reporter proceeds on the story will be worth a watch. When a reporter becomes bigger than the story, journalism suffers”.

Rana Ayyub, who was present at the Newslaundry studio a few days back for an interview, however, denies that the CBI leak was a selective one. She said that she got access to the report in advance not because she is anti-Modi but because she has diligently pursued the case for the longest period since the beginning. You can watch her interview here.

Vineet Narain – who blew the lid off the Hawala scam – says that if at all leaks are part of investigative journalism, far from being the story, they simply provide the lead to the main story. He said, “I have spent weeks and months investigating just one aspect of the story. After all, the person leaking the information is one among the disgruntled lot”. He warns journalists against the temptation of rushing a story once they stumble upon secret and damaging information. The emphasis should be on verifying the credibility of the source – why at all is someone giving you information? According to him, “An honest investigative journalist would always hear the accused party’s version. He or she would not write a one-sided story”.

If hearing the point of view of the accused or presenting the other party’s perspective is integral to investigative journalism, Ayyub’s investigative story doesn’t fit the bill. It is primarily a peek-a-boo into CBI’s chargesheet on the Ishrat Jahan encounter. Ayyub’s report definitely informs us of a series of evidences in possession of the CBI. These range from the audio recording of a conversation between Gujarat’s former Minister of State, a senior IAS officer and other top officials in a meeting secretly recorded by one of the two accused police officers, as well as the claim made by another officer of having overheard conversations of keeping “safed daadhi” and “kaali daadhi” in the know about the Ishrat Jahan encounter. The authenticity of the CBI chargesheet which is the basis of Ayubb’s expose is not verified. The allegations made in her report have no legal standing, as most of it (specially “safed” and “laal” dadhi) is hearsay.

More than anything else, Ayyub’s report has made a lot of noise. However, all the journalists we spoke to believe that a good investigative story wouldn’t simply make noise but make an impact. The Hawala investigation in 1996 led to a probe against several cabinet ministers, chief ministers, governors and leaders of Opposition besides bureaucrats.

Ramnath Goenka awardee, Ramesh Menon – who had uncovered a controversial land acquisition scam in Madhya Pradesh involving a former Chief Justice of India – says that the reason that most investigations these days end up as din is because these investigations are not followed up on. In an email interview with us he said, “No one cares to follow up. There are scores of stories that have been left in the lurch after the initial hoo-ha-ha. Once the din dies down, the reporter or the media outlet moves to another one when they can generate some sensation.”

So, are investigations more about creating a sensation nowadays? Isn’t following up on the story de rigeur for the journalist concerned? Aaj Tak’s Deepak Sharma, the journalist who spearheaded Operation Dhritarashtra says, “Reporters should follow up on their stories, but it is one of the luxuries that we can’t afford. After a point of time people lose interest in the story and we have to move on to the next story”. As for following up on his exposé on misappropriation of funds by Salman Khurshid, he said that the matter is in court, so he can’t do much about it.

Cobrapost editor Aniruddha Bahal disagrees. For all those journalists who complain that in this fast-paced breaking news scenario, they don’t have the time to sit back and build on a lead, Bahal has a message. He says, “Time has to be found. Where there is a will there is a way. I have always maintained that the more pesky reporters in a society, the more rule of law it has. They are directly proportionate to each other. To complain about not having rule of law and individual liberties and thinking that it can be achieved without a healthy media is a pipe dream”.

However, it is just not about the amount of time a journalist invests on investigating a story. It’s also about when a story breaks. Ayyub says that she never anticipated that her Ishrat Jahan exposé would turn out to be so big. But the timing played a crucial role in giving it a lot of traction. Hers of course won’t be the last “investigative” piece. There will be more such leaks, more such scoops that journalists would lay their hands on. However, a journalist will always have to choose between the instant rush and fame of getting hold of seemingly controversial documents, which could be more conjecture than hard facts.