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The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to respond within 10 days to the petition filed by Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata, seeking a direction to the government to probe the leakage of audio tapes containing his private conversation with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and stop their further publication.
The apex court issued notices to Home Secretary G K Pillai, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Income Tax Department and the finance ministry, asking them to file an affidavit on the issue. The SC then posted the matter for further hearing on December 13.
The court also directed that two magazines -- Open and Outlook -- which had published the conversations, be made parties to the petition by Tata and issued notices to them. Appearing for various government departments, Attorney General G E Vahanvati accepted notices on their behalf.
During the hearing, the bench said the issues raised in the petition should not be left to an academic exercise.
"We will hear them (two magazines). We will also hear the attorney general who is appearing in the matter. We are not in a hurry," a bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly said.
Appearing for Tata, senior advocate Harish Salve said, "We do not want any injunction against the media."
The bench said, "Since we are examining the issue, we want to hear them also."
At the outset, Salve said the petition raises a matter of immense importance -- the interpretation of Article 21 of the Constitution concerning right to life, which also includes the right to privacy.
He said Tata has not challenged the rights of recording by the statutory authority nor has he challenged the use of transcript by the probe agencies.
"My concern is that the audio content of personal conversation should not be put into public domain," Salve submitted. He said all the conversation which has no relevance for the purpose for which it was recorded must be put out of media's reach.
At this point, the bench asked him, "What are these private conversations?"
Salve replied that there are various types of private conversations that have are not concerned with government files and cannot be made public. He contended that the public disclosure of the conversations would violate Tata's right to privacy.