SC notice to Centre on phone tapping

The Supreme Court Tuesday issued notices to the Centre and the Delhi government on a petition filed by Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh seeking a judicial inquiry into the tapping of his telephone.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal has sought a response within two weeks from the ministry of telecommunications, minister of home affairs, Commissioner of Police, Delhi and others on his petition also seeking laying down of guidelines for intercepting calls so that it should not be abused for achieving political gains.

Singh, who is carrying forward his charge on telephone tapping issue, had filed an application on January 9 seeking a direction to prosecute those found guilty in the probe.

Among the respondents, the Singh has named the Congress and private telecom major Reliance Infocomm.

However, in the fresh petition filed Monday, he added other private telecom players like Idea Cellular, Tata Indicom, Bharti Cellular and Hutch as respondents.

Singh claimed that apart from his telephone, the personal telephones of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, who is a Lok Sabha MP, were being also tapped.

He also referred to the reported statement of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa expressing concern on the issue of phone tapping of opposition leaders.

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