IMPORTANT POINT
Service provider has to act as a responsible agency and cannot act on any communication.

Ganguly, J.—In this writ petition, filed under Article 32, the petitioner is seeking to protect his fundamental right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The petitioner’s case is that on the basis of his information from various sources, he had learnt that the Government of India and the Government of National Capital Region of Delhi, being pressurised by the respondent No.7, had been intercepting the petitioner’s conversation on phone, monitoring them and recording them. The petitioner had been availing of the telephone services of M/s Reliance Infocom Ltd., impleaded herein as respondent no.8. He further referred to similar cases of interception of phone conversations of other people, including some of the country’s leading political figures, who were using services provided by M/s Reliance Infocom Ltd. and other service providers. Such interception of conversation, according to the petitioner, amounts to intrusion on the privacy of the affected people, and is motivated by political ill will and has been directed only towards those who are not aligned with the political party in power at the Centre. He submitted that this infringement of his fundamental rights was symptomatic of the erosion of the democratic values in the country. He prayed that the Court may declare the orders for interception unconstitutional and therefore void, and initiate a judicial inquiry into the issuance and execution of these orders, and prayed that damages be awarded to him. It was further prayed that all the telecom service providers including M/s. Reliance Infocom, along with all the others who had been impleaded, be directed to disclose all the relevant details with respect to the directions of interception issued to them by the authorities, and this Court may lay down guidelines on interception of phone conversations in addition to the ones laid down by this Court in its judgment in People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) v. Union of India and Another.1

2. The petitioner’s case is that a request dated 22nd October, 2005 was issued from the office of the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), New Delhi to the Nodal Officer, Reliance Infocom Ltd., Delhi, for the interception of all the calls made from or to the telephone numbers of the petitioner. This request was subsequently followed by an order dated 9th November, 2005, from the Principal Secretary (Home), Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, authorising the said request. The case of respondent no. 8 is that the said orders were acted upon by it, and the petitioner’s conversations were intercepted. However, the Union of India, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi denied the allegations. They submitted that said orders annexed to the petition, purporting to be issued by the Joint Commissioner of Police, (Crime), New Delhi, and the Principal Secretary (Home), Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi are fabricated with forged signatures and they are not genuine. Alleging forgery, a criminal case in that respect had already been initiated.

3. In the course of the hearing, by filing an interlocutory application (no.2 of 2006) the petitioner submitted that the recordings of the said conversations had been made available to some journalists/news agencies. In view of these submissions, this Court directed the electronic and the print media not to publish any part of the said conversations, vide Court’s order dated 27th February, 2006.

4. Various applications for intervention were preferred, especially by civil society groups. These applications were allowed. The interveners argued that the conversations by the petitioner were mostly made in his capacity as a public functionary and, therefore, were public in nature, and the citizens of the country have a right to know their contents under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. A prayer was therefore made by them to vacate the order of injunction.

5. In this matter pursuant to the direction of th