Phone tapping no longer permissible without order of Home Secy

New Delhi, Mar 2 (UNI) The Supreme Court was informed today that no phone tapping or interception of any message or class of messages under Sub-section 2 of Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act 1885, will be permissible without the orders of respective home secretaries in case of the Centre or a state government.

The new guidelines notified by the Union government yesterday also clarified that phone tapping could be permitted in unavoidable circumstances under the orders of a duly authorised officer not below the rank of joint secretary to the government of India. The government has also made it mandatory that directions for interception of messages or phone tapping would remain in force for a maximum period of sixty days from the date of issue and may be renewed but the same would not remain in force beyond a total period of 180 days.

The order of phone tapping could be revoked earlier also.

The officer authorised to intercept any message would have to maintain proper records with details of intercepted messages and particulars of persons whose message had been intercepted and the name and designation of the authority to whom the intercepted message or class of messages has been disclosed. The government today undertook to file the copy of the newly notified guidelines in the apex court within a week.

A bench comprising Justices C K Thakkar and V S Sirpurkar adjourned the hearing of the Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh's phone tapping case by two weeks.

The 19 guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Communications and IT also made it clear that service providers would be responsible for their employee's actions also in case it was proved that the guidelines for intercepting messages pertaining to maintenance of secrecy and confidentiality of information and unauthorised interception of communication action would be taken against service providers including not only fine but also suspension of revocation of their licences.

Every service provider would appoint 2 senior executives of the company in every licensed service area/state/union territorries and a nodal officer to receive and handle such requisitions for interception.

The Central government as well as the state government will constitute a Review Committee which would include the Cabinet Secretary as chairman and Secretary to the Central government, In-charge, Legal Affairs and Secretary to the government of India, Department of Telecommunications would be the members and in case of a state, the committee would be headed by the chief secretary with secretary, Law, legal remembrancer in-charge, Legal Affairs, and secretary to the state government other than the state home secretary would be the members.

The Review Committee would meet at least once in 2 months and record its findings whether the directions issued under subrule(1) were in accordance with the provisions of Sub-section 2 of Section 5 of the said act and if the committee found that the directions were not in accordance with provisions referred to above, it may set aside the directions and order for the destruction of the copies of the intercepted message or class of messages.

The notification issued by the Deputy Director General (AS) and ex-officio joint secretary also made it mandatory that records pertaining to such directions for interception and of intercepted messages would be destroyed by the relevant competent authority and the authorised security and law enforcement agencies every six months unless these were or likely to be required for functional requirements.

The service providers will destroy records pertaining to directions for interception of messages within 2 months of discontinuance of the interception of such messages and in doing so, they would maintan extreme secrecy.

These rules will come into force on the date of their publication in the official gazette.

The controversy began when phones of Mr Amar Singh were tapped by the government leading to disclosure of some alleged shady deals and he filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking stay of the investigation being carried on by Delhi police.

The sting operations conducted by TV news channels to expose corruption in high places have also come under fire from the apex court. The petitioners have contended that it was a clear assault on the privacy of an individual.

In deserving cases, the directions may also be issued by an officer duly authorised by the Union Home Secretary or the state Home Secretary as the case may be and a copy of such orders issued by the competent asthority containg reasons for directions for interception of messages would be forwarded to the concerned review committee within a period of 7 working days.

UNI