Hyderabad: The Central and the state governments have the right to tap phones under Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraphic Act 1885.
According to legal experts, the new Central Monitoring System (CMS), which was made operational from April 2013, further empowers government agencies to tap phones without authorisation.
Section 69 of the Indian Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 has also expanded the powers to tap a phone from a computer network.
The Supreme Court has also held in various cases that telephone conversations should be recorded with the sanction of the Union ministry of home affairs at the Centre and at the state and is admissible as evidence in court.
Mr N. Sridhar Reddy, advocate of the High Court, said, “Electronic data which includes record or data generated, image or sound stored, received or sent in an electronic form or micro film or computer generated microfiche would be admissible under Section 3 of the Evidence Act.”
According to telecom experts, there are two kinds of interception facilities available – Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and leased line. In ISDN facility, a mediation server intercepts a call and then transmits it through a Primary Rate Interface (PRI) line to the office of a government agency. Also, the police can listen in to the conversation on their PRI line and store the recording to attached computers. A sound file of the intercepted call is also recorded and stored in the mediation server simultaneously.
Mr C. Raghu, another practicing advocate of the High Court, said the tape-recorded evidence was compared with a photograph of a relevant incident and based on this assumption it had been decided that Sections 7 and 8 of the Evidence Act (1872) would not bar the admission of improperly obtained evidence.
He recalled that in the case of S. Pratap Singh versus State of Punjab, the Supreme Court had allowed taped telephone conversations between the chief minister’s wife and a doctor to be admitted as evidence to corroborate the evidence of witnesses who had stated that such a conversation had taken place.
He said the Supreme Court in the Malkani case had left the police free to steal evidence and the court to admit the stolen evidence.
Taped conversation between Chandrababu Naidu and MLA Elvis Stephenson
