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Ratan
Tata goes to court against publication of Radia tapes
Monday November 29, 2010 06:58:16 PM ,
IANS
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New Delhi: Tata group
chairman Ratan Tata moved the Supreme Court Monday seeking
judicial restraint on the publication of transcripts of phone
intercepts of top corporate lobbyist Nira Radia with leading
business, media and political figures on the ground of right to
privacy.
The petition was similar to what had been filed by Radia herself
in the Delhi High Court that, in May, had declined to restrain the
telecast of a similar set of wiretaps by a TV channel that had got
possesssion of it on the ground that the people of the country had
a right to know the truth.
Tata's petition contended in the apex court that the publication
of intercepts violated his right to privacy. The reference was to
the transcript of 5,851 purported conversations Radia had with
different people during the period of the wiretap. The calls were
purportedly intercepted on the instruction of the Income Tax
Department after approval from the home ministry.
Tatas's petition made the director of the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI), the director general of Income Tax and Union
of India respondents. At the same time, the government's right to
intercept telephone calls was not being questioned, he said.
Seeking action against the people who were responsible for leaking
the transcripts, Tata said that the recorded conversations could
have been used for investigations only and not for publication in
media.
The government has, meanwhile, ordered an inquiry into the
unauthorised leak of the tapes that has set media and political
circles abuzz.
Senior counsel Prashant Bhushan, who appeared in tha apex court
for the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, said it was
considering moving an application to oppose any such curbs on the
publication of the transcripts.
Bhushan's client is also seeking court monitoring of the
investigation into the telecom spectrum allocation scandal.
During the hearing of Radia's petition in the Delhi High Court,
Justice V.K. Shalli had observed that the people of India had the
right to know the truth and the recordings were made by a
government agency against which no challenge had been filed so
far.
The "Radia tapes", as the wiretaps are being called, refer to her
conversations with then communications Minister A. Raja, some
leading industrialists and journalists. The tapes were submitted
as evidence in a litigation on the 2G spectrum row in the Supreme
Court.
Raja had quit as communications minister Nov 15 due to the 2G
spectrum controversy amid charges of large scale corruption in
allotment of spectrum licenses.
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