Phone-tapping row: SC asks telcos to submit data to magistrate

Telcos had approached SC over conflicting orders from Andhra, Telangana govts

Cellular operators, caught between warring Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments in the telephone tapping row, today got a temporary reprieve from the Supreme Court.

The court ordered the operators to produce call data in sealed cover within a week before the magistrate, but added that it won't be opened for four weeks.

Bharti, Reliance, Idea and others under the banner of Cellular Operators Association and BSNL had asked the court to intervene in this “extraordinary” situation, where a Vijayawada court has asked the operators to produce the data but Telangana authorities have said that if they do so they will be prosecuted under the Indian Penal Code, the Telegraph Act and the Official Secrets Act.

Several complaints have already been filed against them over phone-tapping and governments have issued show cause notices.

The dispute started when Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu alleged that his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhara Rao sanctioned the tapping of his phones. 

Senior counsel Nageswara Rao, arguing before a bench headed by Justice Vikramjit Singh, submitted that the service providers had no role in this affair as they were only “catalysts”. The central government has barred them from disclosing the data to anyone.  

“If we obey the order of the  magistrate, we will face the ire of the Telangana government. We don’t take sides. But it is a scary situation for us because of the huge confrontation between the two states,” the counsel said.

Andhra Pradesh took the stand that the order of the magistrate be obeyed and it would not violate the Official Secrets Act or the Telegraph Act. The order of the magistrate was to protect the data as according to rules, they should be destroyed after two months.