The Supreme Court on Tuesday continued the suspense over the CBI probe into eight cases of criminality in the Nira Radia tapes as it decided to first examine the plea of former Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata seeking a ban on disclosure of the tapes in public domain in the interest of his right to privacy.
The Bench of Justices Hl Dattu, JS Khehar and RK Agarwal framed three questions of law being dealt by it from August 26, as it felt that delving into the CBI reports on criminality or illegality in Radia tapes would make the proceedings in the case “never ending”.The three issues formulated by the court were related to right to privacy vis-à-vis the Government, right to privacy vis-à-vis Press, and Right of people to know information.“Other issues with regard to criminality or illegality in awarding various contracts to private parties that has come up is conversations of one person with other persons will be taken up after we consider above issues,” the Bench said, without naming any person.
The court, meanwhile, did not open the “sealed” reports and ordered the Registry to keep the seal intact with the direction to not open it even after apprehensions were raised by Tata’s counsel senior advocate Harish Salve regarding the contents being leaked to the Press on two earlier occasions.Salve suggested to the court that the issues of privacy had to be dealt both against the Government and the Press. In cases where Government ordered tapping of private phones, there must be mechanism to destroy what is irrelevant and purely in the form of personal conversations.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) lN Rao, who appeared for the Centre, indicated that the Government conducted an enquiry following the leak and found that the fault was not on part of its officials. But the court told Rao, “You must explain to us which part you would be retained and which would be destroyed and within what time the relevant content is to be retained and irrelevant content be destroyed.”Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for NGO CPIl, argued that the public too had the right to know in such cases, where conversations that appeared in public domain disclosed the functioning of professional corporate lobbyists who influence Government decisions, Cabinet appointments and Parliamentary debates.
“These are public issues and people of this country are entitled to know how this country is run. They need to be investigated and taken to logical conclusion,” Bhushan said, seeking a hearing on the criminality contained in the Radia tapes.The bench agreed that the 17 issues of criminality, framed by the court, does require investigation but refused to give priority to hearing them initially.
