A day after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) asked the Home Ministry to take “appropriate action” in the Essar telephone tapping case, a senior official in the Ministry has said that they would seek legal opinion before proceeding further in the case. The Essar group has been accused of tapping telephone conversations of some top industrialists and politicians.
After the taped conversations of corporate lobbyist Nira Radia with several politicians, businessmen and media persons surfaced in 2010, the Supreme Court had examined the concerns arising from “right to privacy.” This it did acting on a petition filed by Tata Group chief Ratan Tata, whose conversations were also leaked. The calls were recorded by the Income Tax department from 2008 to 2009.
The official said that the present complaint against the Essar group will also have to be seen in the context of “privacy,” as none of the persons whose conversations were taped had lodged a formal complaint.
The official said Home Minister Rajnath Singh would take a final call.
A complaint was made to the PMO by lawyer Suren Uppal alleging that the Essar Group had ordered its former security chief Al Basit Khan to tap into its business rivals’ telephone conversations. The complaint had attached call logs of purported conversations Mukesh and Anil Ambani had with senior officials and conversations that apparently showed how business rivals reached out to politicians to seek favours. The calls were recorded from 2000 to 2011.
The complaint also mentioned conversations of senior officials in the PMO, including Ranjan Bhattacharya and Brajesh Mishra. Calls of senior Cabinet Ministers such as the then Telecom Minister, Pramod Mahajan, and Petroleum Minister Ram Naik too were allegedly tapped.
