Govt to impose penalty of up to Rs 2 crore on unlawful phone tapping
merisarkar news service
New Delhi, January 17, 2011
Penalty of up to 2 cr is proposed
The Government has proposed a penalty of up to 2 crore rupees on unlawful phone tapping. The present amount is just 500 rupees. In a communication to the Prime Minister's Office, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has proposed the imposition of a penalty between one lakh and two crore rupees for breaches under different sections of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885.
Amendments to the Indian Telegraph Rules for electronic provision and collection of Call Data Records have also been proposed. The move assumes significance in the wake of the Niira Radia tapes and their leakage to the media.
Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata group, moved to Supreme Court to get an injunction on the broadcast of his conversation with lobbyist Niira Radia. Ratan Tata pleaded that these conversations are private in nature and their broadcast is violation of his right to privacy under the fundamental right of right to life.
Prior to this, tapped conversation of then Samajwadi Party leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Amar Singh with industrialists, politicians and bollywood stars created sensation in Delhi's power circles.
Amar Singh, too, had moved to Supreme Court to prevent the broadcast of tapes of his alleged conversation with high profile people. In Amar Singh's case, SC had prevented media from broadcasting the alleged conversation.
