State breached SC rules on phone tapping?
ALVARO COLACO
CORTALIM, FEB 6
At a time when the issue of telephone tapping is occupying centre-stage at the national level, it has come to light that the Goa Government has been tapping telephones in the State, allegedly in violation of Supreme Court directions and the Indian Telegraph Rules, until very recently.
Information obtained by RTI activist Savio Correia from the State Home Department suggests that telephone tapping was done in breach of the procedure established by law, and a ‘Review Committee’ was constituted only in September last year. The authorities have stubbornly refused to disclose any information about interception of telephone conversations, leading Correia to approach the State Information Commission for relief.
Central and State Governments are authorised to tap telephones/intercept conversations under certain circumstances, stipulated in Section 5 (2) of the Indian Telegraph Act 1855. However, earlier, no rules or guidelines were framed by the Government for this and so the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) petitioned the Supreme Court in 1996.
In a landmark judgment, the Apex Court held that the “right to hold a telephone conversation in the privacy of one’s home or office without interference can certainly be claimed as the ‘right to privacy’. Conversations on the telephone are often of an intimate and confidential character… The right to privacy would certainly include telephone-conversation in the privacy of one’s home or office. Telephone tapping would, thus, infract Article 21 of the Constitution of India unless it is permitted under the procedure established by law.”
Pending framing of rules, the Supreme Court laid down procedures for telephone tapping. It directed that orders for telephone tapping shall have effect initially for a period of two months, but the issuing authority can seek renewal for a further period. In no case would the order be effective for more than 180 days. It further directed the constitution of a ‘review committee’ comprising the Chief Secretary, Law Secretary and another Secretary nominated by the CS, to scrutinise every telephone tapping order. Pursuant to the SC order, the central government amended the Indian Telegraph Rules, incorporating these safeguards.
But the Home Department informed Correia that no such ‘review committee’ existed in Goa prior to September 21, 2010. Consequently, says Correia, all telephone tapping ordered by the State Government in the last 14 years has been done in violation of directions of the Supreme Court and in violation of Rule 419-A of the Indian Telegraph Rules.
“The right to privacy of citizens whose telephones were tapped during this period was severely compromised”, Correia told Herald. He said that the ‘review committee’ was constituted only after he filed a second appeal before the State Information Commission. “Even the hastily constituted review committee is a sham, since the Chief Secretary also functions as the Home Secretary, and could end up reviewing his own orders”, he said.
Correia’s request for copies of tapping orders from 1997 to 2010 was denied by the Home Department, invoking the exemption clause under the RTI Act, a view upheld by the first appellate authority, the Joint Secretary (GA). The matter is now before the State Information Commission, in second appeal.
In a separate string of RTI queries, the first appellate authority upheld Correia’s request for furnishing statistical data of the number of telephone tapping orders passed during the same period. But the State Government, in a surprise move, has challenged its own Joint Secretary’s order before the State Information Commission.
Correia has also filed a complaint against the PIO of the Home Department for refusing information. The Chief Information Commissioner will hear arguments in all these cases on February 18.
Correia says the State Government is bent on denying this information, as bringing it in the public domain would expose its contempt of Supreme Court orders, as well as violation of the right to privacy of those whose telephones were tapped. “There is every possibility that telephones of Opposition politicians, civil society activists, journalists and even the judiciary may have been intercepted”, he charged. Denying disclosure of telephone tapping orders would only encourage arbitrariness and corruption, and perpetuate violation of constitutional rights, he said.
