Arun Jaitley call records case: Rajya Sabha summons BS Bassi, Home Secretary

NEW DELHI: The Rajya Sabha Privileges Committee has summoned Union Home Secretary LC Goyal and Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi on Tuesday to seek their explanation with regard to the alleged compromise of the call record details of finance minister and leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley.

The matter has been revived after a gap of nearly 20 months and the home secretary as well as the police commissioner could face tough questions on whether the police probe into the case was exhaustive and measures put in place to avoid a repeat of such an incident.

The committee had last spoken with the government representatives on August 26, 2013 regarding the case in which Delhi Police arrested four persons, including a Delhi Police constable, for obtaining the call record details of Jaitley’s phone in 2013 when he was the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

Government officials said this meeting is unrelated to the alleged snooping incident involving Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and will discuss all pending privilege matters with the committee.

Delhi Police had chargesheeted four persons – Delhi police constable Arvind Dabas and three private detectives; Anurag, Neeraj and Nitish – for obtaining Jaitley’s call record details from private telecom operators after misusing the official email ID of an ACPlevel officer. All four men are presently out on bail and facing a trial. The police had said that the accused obtained such records of nearly 30 other persons as well.

However, the police had not attributed any political or corporate angle behind the matter and said Anurag Singh had procured the call records of Jaitley and others only to find contacts in political, business or media circles who could help him in the case concerning the former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, whose phone he had also tapped illegally in 2005.