An unpleasant odour

The central government's response to the controversy over the alleged phone taps of four political leaders is feeble and lacks credibility. A careful parsing of Home Minister P. Chidambaram's cautiously worded statement suggests it withholds more than it reveals. In declaring that the United Progressive Alliance government has not authorised any eavesdropping on the mobile phones of political leaders, Mr. Chidambaram has come up with a highly qualified denial. If the cell phones of political leaders such as Sharad Pawar and Prakash Karat were tapped, it is obvious that this would have been done surreptitiously rather than by following the due legal procedure; this would include a written authorisation from the Union Home Secretary, which must specify the reasons for intercepting the conversations and is subject to review. The Home Minister's statement that “nothing has been found…to substantiate the allegation” in the records of the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which carried out the taps according to a recent expose in Outlook magazine, is also an assertion of the obvious. A highly secretive intelligence gathering agency such as the NTRO is not the kind of organisation that maintains truthful and detailed written records of every activity it undertakes. Moreover, the allegation is that the NTRO used a new generation device that can tap into phone conversations within a certain radius off-the-air, bypassing the process of obtaining authorisation and without enlisting the cooperation of the service provider.

The controversy raises serious issues relating to the misuse of official agencies in the narrow interest of the ruling party. It also raises the question of how the right to privacy can be protected in the face of changing technologies. Do we need new laws that govern the use of off-the-air surveillance devices? What if such devices get into private hands? Rather than address such serious questions, the government's overall reaction — which includes a flat rejection of the demand to set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the allegations — has been unconstructive. Intercepting private communication is inherently obnoxious and statutes such as the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 and the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008 allow this as an exception — for checking criminal and espionage activity, for instance. In 1996, the Supreme Court laid down a number of guidelines to check arbitrariness in intercepting phone calls. But despite its illegality and highly unpleasant odour, the practice goes on merrily. This time, the government must not be allowed to get away with a predictable refusal to go after, or reveal, the truth.