Phone tapper unlikely to be NTRO

NEW DELHI: The national Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) may not have tapped the telephones of senior Congress and Opposition leaders for the simple reason that it is not authorised to do so, a former NTRO member has told ET.

Following the Supreme Court guidelines on phone-tapping issued in 1996, the government had introduced several safeguards in the Indian Telegraph Act rules to ensure that privacy of individuals was protected.

Under the rules, only the Union home secretary or state home secretaries can issue permission to any one of the 7 notified intelligence agencies — Intelligence Bureau, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Enforcement Directorate, Narcotics Control Bureau, Economic Intelligence Unit and Directorate-General of Investigations, Income-Tax, besides the police — to tap the phones of an individual, that too for a limited period.

The maximum duration of the phone-tapping order would be 15 days, though the order can be renewed further. In emergency cases, the phone-tapping can be undertaken by the intelligence agencies but must be ratified by the designated authority soon after.

Obviously, NTRO is not among the 7 intelligence agencies notified by the government to carry out lawful interception of telephonic communication. At the time when the agencies for legal tapping were still being identified, NTRO’s name had come up, but it was shot down after it was argued that NTRO was not an intelligence agency per se but only an agency to upgrade technology for servicing the national security apparatus.

“NTRO, though a free monitoring body, is not an intelligence agency...at most it can assist the intelligence agencies for R&D purposes,” said the former NTRO member while adding that there was possibly no question of the agency monitoring specific individual targets in the process.

So just how did NTRO’s name crop up in the latest phone-tapping scandal? Sources indicate that it may be the handiwork of certain “disgruntled ex-NTRO elements” who are out gunning for NTRO.

According to the 1996 ruling of the Supreme Court on a petition filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, the right to a private phone conversation is a fundamental right of privacy.

The judgement laid down certain guidelines for phone tapping, stating that only home secretary of the government of India or home secretaries of the state governments shall authorise phone-tapping. The tapping order, the apex court said, should cease to be effective, unless renewed, two months from the date of issue.