Ratan Tata moves SC

Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata today filed a petition in the Supreme Court, seeking an investigation into the leakage of tapes containing his telephonic conversation with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia. He also sought an injunction against further leaks, though he has spared the media.

Tata has made the Union government, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the departments of income tax and telecommunications as respondents. The court is likely to give a date for a hearing tomorrow.

Tata has invoked Article 32 of the Constitution, claiming his Right to Life, which includes a right to privacy, has been breached by the leakage of these tapes. He has also sought action against those involved in the leakage of the conversation.

The Supreme Court had delivered a judgment around a decade earlier, restricting telephone tapping to the investigation of offences. It had also directed that such tape recordings should be destroyed after six months. In this case, tapes more than a year old were leaked and are now in the public domain, says the Tata petition.

Even as Parliament and the Supreme Court were dealing with the 2G spectrum allocation scam, allegedly involving Rs 1.76 lakh crore, some weekly magazines had published taped conversations that Radia had with politicians, journalists and industrialists.

According to senior counsel Harish Salve, who is likely to argue the case, Tata has no quarrel with the government. But he wishes to make the point that private conversations should not be made public, he said.

 

Also read: Ratan Tata wants govt to probe real 2G scam