D K Ravi case and the right to privacy

Bengaluru, March 23: The Karnataka government would have acted contrary to the legal provisions had it tabled an interim report regarding the investigations into the D K Ravi death case.

On Sunday, Justice Abdul Nazeer of the Karnataka High Court barred the Karnataka government from tabling an interim report relating to the investigations into the death of D K Ravi.

Criminal jurisprudence does not permit an investigating agency or a government from tabling an interim report. As per the provisions in the Code of Criminal Procedure, investigation agencies can only submit a full report or a chargesheet before the court.

Right to privacy:

The petition that was filed before Justice Nazeer at his residence yesterday at 4 PM made several interesting points. Since the details of a message between the IAS officer and his batch mate was being made public, the petition decided to invoke the right to privacy clause.

Various cases filed before the Supreme Court were quoted in the petition when the right to privacy clause was invoked in the D K Ravi case. The Nira Radia tapes issue filed by Ratan Tata and also the observations by the Supreme Court in the Sahara vs SEBI case too were quoted.

It was stated that the Supreme Court on numerous occasions had said that when a matter is pending trial or investigation is underway, details of the probe can be restrained from publication.

It was the claim in the petition that unwanted publication of the probe details would affect the right of privacy of a few and hence the assembly should be restrained from making the interim report public.

However the main contention was that tabling an interim investigation report is bad in law and the CrPC does not provide for the same. The investigation agency can only file a preliminary, complete or additional chargesheet before the court of law.

Matter to come up for further hearing:

Justice Abdul Nazeer will take up the same case for further hearing today at 2.30 PM. Certain aspects which could not be addressed since the petition was moved in a hurry will be taken up for hearing today.

In addition to this directives in the wake of a new development since the CBI has now been roped in too will come up for hearing. Yesterday at his residence, Justice Nazeer had said that the government is restrained from making any public statement relating to the probe.

OneIndia News