Govt must protect tapped conversations,says SC

Tatas concerns prompted the Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly to remark that though the government have the right to tap but they also have the duty to protect it and ensure that it is not leaked.

They have to safeguard it (the tapes) effectively. In the fast-changing time and developing technology,privacy is virtually disappearing and is being diluted, the court observed.

Tata voiced apprehension at the way the authorities did not restrict the media from publishing transcripts of conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and several prominent personalities,allegedly including him. Government should have been extremely concerned on April 28,2010 as to how this got in the media and how it was leaked? Salve asked.

The lawyer expressed for the first time his doubts as to whether the service provider itself had leaked the transcripts to the media. The information is with three government agencies,CBI,IB and IT Department,and fourth might be the service provider. We do not know from where it leaked, he said.

The transcripts were allegedly part of tapes made of Radias conversations while she was under surveillance by the I-T Department acting on a complaint received that she was a foreign agent and raising questions about how she built a multi-crore business empire within a short span of nine years.

On the publication of the transcripts,Salve called for reasonable restraint on the media and it should not interfere with an individuals right to privacy. The inflated notion of freedom of the press needs to be corrected. If it is allowed to publish such conversation,then paparazzi type of media would develop, he said.