Chidambaram's reply on tapping frightening: Jaitley

Arun Jaitley led the Opposition charge against the government on phone-tapping allegations in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. Citing relevant provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, and a 1996 Supreme Court judgement, he contended that the laws were clear on the circumstances in which a person’s telephone could be tapped by government agencies. The government, he argued, did not have absolute powers in this regard. In an interview with Devesh Kumar, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha elaborated his theme:

Were you satisfied with home minister P Chidambaram’s reply? What could be the repercussions of the government’s stand?

I’m absolutely dissatisfied with several parts of Mr Chidambaram’s reply. First, the government claims that they have not authorised the tapping of telephones of four politicians. At the same time, they are unable to deny that they were not being tapped. Why do you need an inquiry to look into the factual position when the details of the tapping exercise are available in the software of the bugging system.

The second part of his speech, which is even more frightening and intimidating, arises when he says that tax violation can be a ground for bugging a phone. The law does not permit this. Every corporate entity and millions of assesses will have tax disputes with the income-tax department. Can their phones be bugged ? Neither the Telegraph Act nor the 1996 Supreme Court judgement permits this. The occurrence of public emergency and interests of public safety are the only necessary condition precedent for bugging a phone.

But the home minister admitted that the government would be willing to look into the infirmities...

It was a frightening speech where a promise of future reasonableness cannot act as a sweetener.

Don’t you think that by saying this the home minister conceded that there could be drawback in the rules and that they could be susceptible to misuse?

Not only can it be misused, people won’t get to know of the misuse since the consequences of the law are operated in secrecy.

You said in your speech there were 17,000 registered lobbyists in Washington, and that as much as 45% of the US Congressmen who retired since 1998 had taken up lobbying as a profession. Do you think that India is moving in that direction?

Politics in India still doesn’t measure up to the best standards of probity. If you legitimise the role of lobbyists, it’ll only make it worse.