The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday stayed further criminal proceedings against Bharti Airtel Ltd. chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal and other top executives on a complaint by a person alleging that Airtel had divulged his call details and based on this, his estranged wife was able to locate him.
Justice K.N. Phanindra passed the interim order after hearing the petitions filed by Mr. Mittal, managing director Gopal Vital, chief executive officer Rohit Malhotra, and nodal officer Stanley Angelo.
The petitioners had questioned the summons issued to them by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bengaluru Rural district based on a private complaint filed by Sharavan (name changed), a resident of Bengaluru.
It was pointed out to the court that Airtel had provided the call details of the complainant to the police according to the law and it would have been an offence had they refused to cooperate with the investigating agency. It was also contended in the petition that the magistrate court had taken cognisance of the offence despite filing of ‘B’ report by the police on the complaint.
‘Breach of trust’
The complainant had alleged that Airtel had divulged his call details of around 10 days during October 2012 and thus allegedly breached the trust.
He had also claimed that his estranged wife had made use of the call details provided by Airtel and called those numbers to locate him.
