Amid the debate over legality of phone conversations, speculation is rife on whether the investigators secured permission from the designated authority to record the phone conversations between the complainant, accused and suspects in the sensational cash for vote case.
Legal advisors and sources in the ACB maintain that as per the Indian Telegraph Act, securing permission from the Home Secretary is a must to record phone conversations. With the ACB declining to share details of the case and Telugu Desam Party leaders rubbishing legal validity of the phone conversations connected to the case, rumours are doing the rounds about the possible involvement of top politicians.
While investigators are mum, police officials privately indicated that no agency would “blindly” proceed in cash for vote like case having serious political ramifications without following the procedure duly established by law.
“This is not a first case for the ACB and since they knew in advance that top-level political leaders were connected, surely they would have taken permission,” is what police officials say.
It is broadly believed that they would have taken the State Home Secretary’s permission with the Intelligence IG as the nodal officer.
“It is true that without that permission, the recorded phone conversations would have no evidentiary value,” they noted.
Normally, ACB officials ask the complainant to record the conversation of the officer demanding bribe over mobile phones to convince the higher-ups that it was a fit case for trap.
But they don’t produce these recorded conversations in the court as evidence. When MLA Stephenson approached them alleging that he was being offered bribe to vote for TDP MLC candidate, a case was registered.
“Legally, any evidence - electronic, documents or in other form can be collected by the investigators for any further probe. The video footage is part of that,” ACB sources said.
As per a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India advisory, all mobile phone conversations in the country are automatically recorded and kept in the database open for retrieval for several months. Later, they would go into the backup mode.
While the debate on the legal angles of tapping may continue, the fact of the matter is that political damage has been done.
Speculation rife on whether investigators secured permission to record conversations
