The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file a status report on the investigation into intercepted conversations of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, PTI reported.
The “Radia tapes” controversy involved the leak of audio tapes in 2010 involving corporate lobbyist Niira Radia whose phone conversations with industrialists, journalists, government officers, and others were tapped as part of a tax evasion investigation. Ratan Tata’s conversations with Radia were among those carried by the media in 2010.
A three-judge bench led by Justice D Y Chandrachud and comprising Justices Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha was on Wednesday hearing a plea filed by industrialist Ratan Tat seeking protection of right to privacy. Tata had filed the petition in 2011, and it was last heard in the top court in 2014.
The bench said that it will take up the matter on October 12 and asked the central investigative agency to file an updated status report.
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“We will have it after the vacations as there is a Constitution Bench next week. Meanwhile, the CBI may file an updated status report,” the bench said, as quoted by PTI.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the CBI, submitted that the petition may be disposed of in the light of the right to privacy judgment of the apex court, which was delivered in 2017 in the retired Justice KS Puttaswamy case.
Bhati said that the CBI was directed to undertake the investigation by the top court and fourteen preliminary inquiries were registered in the case. The report was submitted to the top court and no criminality was found.
“I must inform you that the CBI was directed by your lordship to investigate all these conversations. Fourteen preliminary inquiries were registered and the report was placed before your lordships in a sealed cover. No criminality was found in those. Also, now there are phone-tapping guidelines in place,” Bhati said, as quoted by PTI.
The counsel appearing for Tata had sought an adjournment, but Bhati said that after the privacy judgment, nothing remains in the case.
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The counsel for the petitioner told the Supreme Court that there is another petition filed by NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) which had sought that the tapes be made public in view of larger public interest.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the CPIL, said Radia was a corporate lobbyist for two of the most important companies and there were attempts to influence public persons etc. which was revealed.