india

Updated: Nov 05, 2019 00:45 IST

The Supreme Court on Monday took serious note of the Chhattisgarh government’s move to tap the phones of a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and his family members, observing that there was “no privacy left for anybody.”

A bench of justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee sought an explanation from the state as to how it can violate a person’s privacy, and ordered the government to file a detailed affidavit.

“What is the need to do like this? No privacy is left for anybody. What is happening in this country?” the bench asked, adding, “Can privacy of somebody be violated like this? Who ordered this?”

In a previous hearing in October, senior police officer Mukesh Gupta alleged that his and his two daughters’ phones were being intercepted by the incumbent Chhattisgarh government.

The state government has admitted that his phone was tapped as he has been evading arrest in two cases lodged against him. The government has denied intercepting the officer’s daughters’ phones.

The top court has restrained the state from intercepting the phones of Gupta and his family, and granted him protection from arrest in the cases lodged against him. But it has refused to quash the FIRs lodged against the 1988 batch IPS officer including one for alleged FCRA violation by a trust running an eye hospital, founded by his father.

On February 9, two IPS officers from Chhattisgarh, including Gupta, were suspended after the Economic Offences Wing of the police registered an FIR against them for alleged criminal conspiracy and illegal phone-tapping during a probe into a suspected Civil Supplies Corporation scam in 2015. The other officer is Narayanpur superintendent of police Rajnesh Singh.

Gupta has denied all charges.

On Monday, the bench was also told that the lawyer representing the IPS officer too was facing a criminal case.

The court then stopped the investigation into the matter and ordered no coercive steps be taken against him till further orders. It asked him to strike off chief minister Bhupesh Baghe’s name from the memo of parties in the petition

The bench, however, disallowed the IPF officer’s lawyer, senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, to politicise the issue