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Govt raises tamper doubt on Radia tapes

-The Telegraph

A government report on the Niira Radia tapes that was submitted to the Supreme Court today mentioned discrepancies between the original recordings and the conversations broadcast by the media, suggesting they may have been tampered with.

The report was submitted in a sealed cover to the bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly. It was not made public but Justice Singhvi read out parts of it that said the beginning and the end of the conversations released by the media do not match with the original tapes.

The judge read aloud another part of the report in which the government denied any hand in the tapes’ leak to the press. There were several agencies involved in the taping, the government said, indicating some other source leaked the recordings.

Several private telecom operators were also involved in this operation.

The government’s report was submitted by the directorate of investigation (income tax department) in compliance with a court notice on industrialist Ratan Tata’s plea but its copies were not given to Tata’s counsel who had moved the court seeking to protect the industrialist’s right to privacy.

Tata had demanded that the government stop more leaks of such tapes and ensure that private conversations with no relevance to the public or with any bearing on public interest be screened by the appropriate taping authorities right at the beginning to prevent any misuse in the future.

The conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and others were recorded jointly by the Enforcement Directorate and the income tax department in a bid to keep an eye on financial irregularities allegedly committed by Radia. The government authorities had tapped 180 days of Radia’s conversations.

Counsel Mukul Rohatgi today submitted to the Supreme Court that despite being a public figure, the Tata group chief had the right to privacy and the media cannot violate it by publishing or telecasting his private conversations contained in Radia tapes.

“I am entitled to the freedom of privacy and the right to privacy. I have a right to be left alone,” Rohatgi argued. “Does a public figure have no private life? There has to be responsible journalism. There is a difference between public interest and interest of public which includes gossips,” Rohatgi said, adding that the media should not have broadcast and publish Tata’s private conversations.

“Nobody has the right to disseminate my private conversations,” he further said.

Tata had contended that as corporate lobbyist Radia’s phone was tapped for probing alleged tax evasion, the tapes should not have been used for any other purpose.