A Rajya Sabha panel has termed as "unfortunate" the phone tapping incident and Call Detail Records (CDR) access of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley by a Delhi Police personnel two years ago. The panel, however, said it does not construe as breach of privilege.
While the panel which submitted its report on Wednesday felt it is an issue of breach of right to privacy which can be dealt under the laws of the land, it said that it did not believe that the previous UPA Government had any hand in accessing the CDR of Jaitley.
It said it was of the opinion that the act of accessing CDRs in an unauthorised manner, though sinister and punishable in the eyes of the law, "does not seem to cause any hindrance of obstruction in the functioning of a Member of Parliament so as to attract breach of his parliamentary privileges.
"However, there is definitely a breach of right to privacy in such matters and for that remedies are available under the laws of land," said
the report of 10-member Committee headed by Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien.
The report mentioned that Jaitley's CDR had been accessed three times on previous occasions on the pretext of investigations in the death of Chadda brothers, busting of fake Indian currency racket and in a murder case of South Delhi.
Jaitely had contested the police claims and wrote to Bharti Airtel which had confirmed that no phone calls or SMSs were sent from the mobile number in question to the people concerned with the police investigations.
The fourth attempt, which was unauthorised, was done by a "delinquent" Delhi Police constable using the user name and password of a senior police official to get the CDR of Jaitley at the instance of a private detective Anurag Singh.
The matter was placed before the Privileges Committee on April 25, 2013 which was followed by hearings.