Late night phone calls no evil: Delhi court
A Delhi court has said that merely because a woman talks to a man over the phone at late hours cannot be a reason to question her character or justify intrusion into her privacy by seeking preservation of her call detail records (CDRs).
Additional Sessions Judge Shunali Gupta made the observation while dismissing an appeal filed by a man challenging a trial court order that had refused his request for the preservation of the CDRs of his wife and another person in a pending domestic violence case.
In an order dated June 2, the court said, “To my mind, talking to any person even at odd hours of the day cannot by itself put a question mark on the character of the woman until and unless it has been alleged that the woman has some illegal, adulterous, etc. relationship with a said man.”
The appellant husband had argued that the preservation of the records was necessary as the complainant, his wife, was allegedly in regular telephonic contact with certain persons during late-night hours and the records might otherwise be erased by the service provider with the passage of time.
Upholding the trial court’s order, the sessions court said that although the right to privacy was not absolute and could yield to the right to a fair trial in appropriate cases, any request seeking preservation of another person’s call records must be supported by specific and reasonable grounds.
“The Indian society no longer remains a primitive society wherein a woman talking with a man is considered to be a taboo,” the judge said.
The court noted that neither the application before the trial court nor the appeal disclosed any concrete reason necessitating preservation of the records.
“Women are working in every field, in multinational companies, etc., and have male colleagues. Just because a woman is found talking on the phone at night... the same cannot ipso facto become a ground seeking preservation of CDR of her mobile number,” the court said.
Holding that any invasion of privacy must be reasonably justified, the court said the trial court had rightly rejected the plea and dismissed the appeal.
