The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to frame guidelines to regulate the work and domain of private detectives till a codified act comes into existence.
The plea had also sought directions to the government to set up a mechanism to prevent transmission of unlawfully procured personal details of Indian citizens to foreign countries.
“You please withdraw it or we will dismiss it,” a bench headed by Justice R F Nariman told senior advocate Vibha Datta Makhija, who was appearing for the petitioner.
Makhija, who argued that snooping by private agencies is not regulated and the issue is needed to be considered, withdrew the petition.
The plea, filed by a Haryana-based woman, alleged that two private detectives who are directors of a Delhi-based company had illegally recorded and filmed her personal details without authorisation from any authority and forwarded them to a person based in the US.
The petition alleged that the US national is using those “fraudulently procured details” in a court of law there.
During the hearing conducted through video-conferencing, the bench asked Makhija, “You only tell us as to how we can issue a writ of mandamus to a private body”.
“Can we issue writ to such persons,” the bench, also comprising justices Navin Sinha and Krishna Murari, said.
The petitioner’’s counsel said that writ of mandamus can be issued to the Ministry of Home Affairs and there is no law to regulate this.
