Phone-tapping: Wake up call for all

CBI’s closure report is surprising

The phone-tapping controversy involving two top police officers of Karnataka, Bhaskar Rao and Alok Kumar, which rocked the state some time ago, is again in the news, with Rao questioning in court the closure report filed by the CBI in a case pertaining to ‘illegal leaking’ of audio clips to the media. But the bigger issue here is that of personal liberty of an individual, as police officers continue to unauthorisedly tap phone calls in violation of all guidelines and court orders with impunity.

In the instant case, a Kannada TV channel had telecast a clip in which Rao, then ADGP, Karnataka State Reserve Police, was allegedly heard canvassing with a power broker to use his influence with top politicians to get him appointed as Bengaluru police commissioner. On the request of Rao, who had accused Kumar, the then additional police commissioner of tapping his phone, the state government had ordered a CBI inquiry.

Also read: Phone tapping: IPS officer files protest plea against CBI closure report

The government, in fact, asked the CBI to inquire into the entire gamut of the issue as there were allegations that the outgoing government of H D Kumaraswamy had ordered tapping of phones of several politicians, their relatives and public servants.

The closure report raises serious concerns although Kumar had earlier claimed that Rao’s phone was not tapped but he had himself waded into a controversy as he was found to be in conversation with an accused in a ponzi scam, whose phone was being tapped. The CBI has not confirmed that the voice in the clip belongs to Rao, but it found that the recording of the conversation was downloaded from a laptop in the police’s technical service centre (TSC) into a pen drive by an inspector and shared with Kumar.

CBI has also confirmed that the raw data in the TSC, the pen drive and the CD available with the journalist were identical, showing that it was indeed a police source that had leaked the audio. While police officers may claim that they played the role of whistle-blowers, the right course of action would have been to file a complaint against Rao if any illegality or overstepping of rules was involved. Thus, it is strange that the CBI has filed a closure report.

In the 80s, Ramakrishna Hegde had to resign as Chief Minister following charges of phone-tapping. Not much seems to have changed since then, mainly because the guilty are never punished. Considering that the CBI does not appear keen to get to the bottom of the issue, this might be a fit case to be monitored by the High Court, in the interest of individual privacy and liberty.