Court sets aside order seeking call records of Punjab top cops

A sessions court here has set aside an order seeking call detail records of top officials of Punjab Police after it was claimed that publication of records would expose various details of secret informers and resources of police officials.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Bansal set aside the magisterial court's order on a complaint alleging false implication of a woman in a narcotics case in Punjab after she wrote a letter from jail to a metropolitan magistrate(MM) here.
The judge observed that the woman had concealed the fact that a similar application was moved by her before a court in Punjab and that Delhi had no jurisdiction in the matter.

"It is visible that respondent (woman) had concealed the fact that she had filed a similar application before the trial court in Punjab. This has to be taken adversely. Moreover, it also appears that she is creating defence of her case in Punjab, which is not permissible under the law...
"She must take up the pleas and prove the same before the NDPS court at Punjab and not in Delhi... The question of preservation of CDRs is also to be decided there and not in Delhi," the judge said.
The court's decision came on a plea of Delhi Police which contended that the magisterial court's decision was "illegal, improper, unjustified and against the law".

Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Kimar Srivastava said that "publication of the CDRs can hamper functioning of the system as it will expose various details of secret informers and resources of police officials".

He had submitted that the call detail records of high ranked police officials of Punjab Police have been sought, "which cannot be taken lightly".
The judge, while accepting the contentions of the APP, said, "In my view, the MM did not consider the matter in the correct perspective and did not take into consideration all these aspects.
"She (MM) hastily passed the impugned order merely on the asking of the respondent(accused) without even considering as to whether such an order could be passed by her or not. The magistrate failed to realise that the respondent was creating defence in Delhi of her Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) case at Punjab.