Taking a serious note of the recent reports of bugging of defence minister’s office and use of off air tapping equipment near defence ministry’s South Block office the government has now decided that criminal action will be initiated against any official, even from defence forces, found using off-air tapping equipment.
Importantly, in a fresh missive last week, the third of its kind in the last few months, the government has once again directed all Central and state monitoring agencies, particularly the defence forces, to surrender all off-air tapping equipment “describing it as illegal”.
Highly-placed government sources said even though the Intelligence Bureau investigations so far have not revealed any misuse of off-air tapping equipment by the defence forces in the vicinity of South Block the government this time is determined to “crack down on the menace”.
Despite repeated reminders from the highest quarters in the government, including the home ministry, some organisations are still holding on to their off-air tapping equipment and are yet to surrender them.
“Without getting into the merits of recent allegations of misuse of off-air tapping by one of the divisions of the Army we are determined this time to seize all unauthorised phone tapping gadgets being used by various agencies,” a top government functionary remarked.
Importantly, in a written communication to all Central and state agencies, involved in phone tapping, have been informed that criminal action will henceforth be initiated against the guilty officials.
What in effect this means is that an first information report will be lodged under various provisions of the IPC and CrPC and arrest of such officials.
Having put in place a slew of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) the government had twice written to various agencies to surrender their off-air tapping gadgets. But only a few of them did so while the rest are still believed to be using them.