The unauthorised accessing by a Delhi police constable of the Airtel mobile phone call records of senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley is a very serious matter indeed, and needs to be probed quickly. But this raises an important question in the context of the right to privacy of citizens. How many more such instances exist in the country?
The government would do well to get to the bottom of this phenomenon, and not deem its job done after it has found the culprits in Mr Jaitley’s case. It is so typical of MPs to do navel-gazing. In the Rajya Sabha on Friday, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav suggested that access to call records of MPs be permitted only after taking the permission of the Chairman of the House, and Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde promptly agreed. But what about ordinary citizens?
The discussion in Parliament, and media reports, suggest that call record data of many dozens of people in different parts of the country have been accessed without authority by unscrupulous elements. No law exists in this regard, unlike the case of phone-tapping, and it’s clearly time call record data was given the protection of legislation. In recent times, former SP leader Amar Singh and prominent industrialist Ratan Tata have complained of their privacy being breached. The government should have paid attention to this particular right of citizens before the case of Mr Jaitley’s phone records surfaced.