New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre and the Delhi Police on a writ petition filed by Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh for a judicial inquiry into the alleged tapping of his telephone by the Delhi police.

A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal, Justice C.K. Thakker and Justice P.K. Balasubramanyam issued notice during `mention' time after hearing senior counsel Rajinder Sachar, Mukul Rohtagi and advocate, P.H. Parekh for the petitioner and Solicitor-General G.E. Vahanvati for the Centre.

The CJI told the SG that it was a very serious matter that required consideration. He said telephone tapping should be resorted to only for security reasons. There must be built-in safeguards to prevent misuse. He said: "No one should try to get political mileage out of the issue.''

The SG submitted that the Centre was working on guidelines. A high-level meeting had taken place for this purpose. He said that when the apex court pronounced its judgment in 1996 there were only two telephone players. Now there were several and the technology also had changed. He said the two letters purported to have been written by the Delhi police and issued to Reliance Infocomm were forged.

Mr. Sachar said the court should direct the Centre to produce in a sealed cover the materials relating to the telephone tapping of 323 persons. Mr. Rohtagi said according to media reports over one lakh telephones were being tapped and the Centre should produce the materials.

The CJI, however, said at the first instance notice was being issued to the Centre and the Delhi police returnable in two weeks. The question of issuing notice to other respondents (including Congress president Sonia Gandhi and private telecom operators), if necessary would be considered later. The CJI while asking the SG to file an affidavit in two weeks, said more than the question of providing safeguards, the Centre should also indicate how the telephone of Mr. Amar Singh was tapped.

Mr. Singh alleged that apart from his telephone, personal telephones of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, Member of Parliament were also being tapped.

The petitioner said there seemed to be a concerted campaign to tap the telephones of the leaders of those political parties not currently aligned with the parties in power at the Centre in a bid to coerce them to toe their line. This, he said, ``points to an unhealthy trend for the Indian polity and democracy at large." He sought a full fledged and honest investigation, by a judicial panel and not by agencies like the CBI, under the control of the party in power at the Centre.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail