Did IT department inform about Radia tapes: SC

The Supreme Court Thursday asked if the Income Tax department informed the authorities about the sensitive and serious nature of the conversations in the tapped phone calls of former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia.

An apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice V. Gopala Gowda also asked whether the department informed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) about the criminality of certain matters that surfaced from the conversations, whose tapping was sanctioned by the authorities.

Noting that it was five years since the former corporate lobbyist's phones were tapped but no follow-up action had taken place, the court sought the original records sanctioning the tapping of the conversations running into 5,508 hours.

Additional Solicitor General A.S. Chandiok told the court that the content of the Radia tapes could not be disclosed to anybody or everybody and that they were only to be disclosed to the Income Tax officers.

Chandiok said this in response to a plea a case party Centre for Public Interest Litigation counsel Prashant Bhushan that all the contents of the tapes be made public, that have bearing on the governance of the country.

"Five years have passed, what have you done," Justice Singhvi asked Chandiok when he said whatever information was available with the income tax department would be shared with the CBI.

The court said: "The officer (in the Income Tax department) who was in possession of sensitive information, did he inform his superior officer about it."

Radia's phones were put under surveillance by the Income Tax department after the finance ministry Nov 16, 2007 received an anonymous letter alleging that in a short span of few years she had built a business house of Rs.300 crore. The complaint had also alleged foreign connections of Radia.

The Income Tax department put Radia's phone under surveillance thrice for 60 days each between 2008-09.

Appearing for petitioner corporate czar Ratan Tata, senior counsel Harish Salve opposed the plea for putting the tapes under the "sun light" saying that after the tapping of the phone, if any criminality surfaced then it should be followed up otherwise the matter should go back to the officers ordered the tapping.

"You have invaded the privacy of a citizen. If there is a criminality, then follow it up and if not then they should go back to the man who had ordered it and (question the) motives," Salve told the court, advocating putting in place a mechanism to protect the private information so gathered from going into the public domain.

Agreeing with Salve, Bhushan said there should be some mechanism, an independent authority for examining the tapes and to take further follow up action.

The court would next hear the matter Aug 6.