When more than 40 crore people living below poverty line do not afford or access or care to seek right to life in Supreme Court of India, Mr. Ratan Tata, $73 bn worth Tata group chief, is seeking to enforce his right to life! He complains that his right to privacy is being violated. He is asking apex court to direct an iron veil of secrecy around Radia Tapes to stop from further publication. It is his privacy! This nation need not know it! It is not about his private conversation with his wife or other family members. His lobbyist-in-chief Mrs. Niira Radia’s talk with famous journalists, news anchors, MPs, leaders, bureaucrats about politics, business, leadership, coalition, cabinet berths, portfolios, 2G spectrum, Raja, DMK, Congress and so on is private affair according to him. Every bit of it is a private corporate matter or privileged communication, and thus part of his ‘private life’ & right to life. If these secrets are not kept secret, it is difficult for big to survive. It spells end of life. The apex court has to protect that right to life by securing these as secrets!
It is nation’s right to know, as integral part of Articles 21 & 19, which the Supreme Court upheld several times.. If transcripts of 5,851 intercepts do not see the light of the day, that day will be the end of life for rule of law.When three Estates and the Fourth was also figured in the revealing tapes, it was the Fifth Estate, including netizen with the web technology that really exercised freedom of expression and kept the issue in lime light to serve the right to know of India.
After due authorization from the Home Ministry the Indian Income Tax department tapped Radia's phone lines for 300 days in 2008-2009 as part of their investigations into possible money laundering, restricted financial practices, and tax evasion. The tapes revealed that Radia had frequent conversations with politicians, A. Raja, former Telecommunication and IT Minister, Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha MP, Journalists, Barkha Dutt, Group editor, English news, NDTV, M.K. Venu, senior business journalist, Prabhu Chawla, editor of India Today magazine, Rajdeep Sardesai, Shankar Aiyar, then with India Today Group, Vir Sanghvi, HT advisory editorial director, Industry Heads, Ratan Tata, Tata Group, Tarun Das, former CII head, (Mention of) Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries, and Ranjan Bhattacharya (foster son-in-law of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee), Suhel Seth, management guru and columnist.
In one of the tapes, an unidentified interlocutor asks Ms Radia, whose clients include both Mr. Tata and Mukesh Ambani, why “you people [i.e. the Mukesh Ambani group] are supporting [Raja] like anything ... when the younger brother [Anil Ambani] is the biggest beneficiary of the so called spectrum allocation”. “Issue bahut complex hai,” Ms Radia replies. “ Mere client Tatas bhi beneficiary rahein hain (my client, the Tatas, have also been a beneficiary).” [1]
There was another crucial conversation between Ratnam, Chartered Accountant of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s third wife Rajathiammal, Rajathiammal herself and Niira Radia, on June 13, 2010, more than three weeks after the UPA II Cabinet had been formed and A.Raja had been successfully planted as the Telecom Minister and Dayanidhi Maran, was kept out, as desired by Ratan Tata and also Mukesh Ambani, as conversations of Radia with others clearly indicated.[2]
It is also reported that Tata through Voltas (a Tata group organization) is in touch with Niira Radia and Ratnam, CA of (Rajathi)Ammal, wife of (Chief Minister) M.Karunanidhi,. They are apparently going to construct a building in Chennai on a land controlled by “TRIL” (Tata Realty and Infrastructure ltd.) with the Karunanidhi family as a payoff to DMK for keeping Maran out of Telecom (ministry).
Privacy for whom?
Privacy is a right for private persons and also for private affairs of public persons. It is illegal, illogical and unreasonable for public persons to claim privacy for their public activities such as governance, policy making, industry, corporation, formation of ministry and politics. Privacy should not be mistaken with secret business operations causing harm to public institutions. Once a crime is committed, the suspicious persons need to be interrogated or investigated. Those suspected or involved cannot claim privacy and ask for protection of their identity, criminal secrets as privacy as part of right to life. Secret lobbying behind 2G spectrum corruption has to be probed into. Looking into authorized recorded tapes is a required and legitimate process and if it reveals the conversation of big people with political lobbyists, which insist on somebody to be made Telcom minister or not to be made. If these tapes are blocked, the rich and powerful brokers would get emboldened to adjust the deals to escape from the long hands of law. Right to privacy is not secrecy or facility for hiding unethical deals and cornering state wealth through manipulations. If criminals or suspects seek this right no crime could be probed anywhere in the world.
If Tata, Burkha Dutt, Vir Singhvi and others who figured in Radia tapes and Radia herself feel defamed by these revelations, they can test their right to reputation by suing publishers. Certainly they do not have Article 21 protection here. That right is available for victims of crime but not to criminals or their helpers.
Read more at http://www.goforthelaw.com/index.php/browsearticles/loadarticleview/141.html
Follow Prof. Madabhushi Sridhar, Professor, NALSAR at http://madabhushi.goforthelaw.com/
It is nation’s right to know, as integral part of Articles 21 & 19, which the Supreme Court upheld several times.. If transcripts of 5,851 intercepts do not see the light of the day, that day will be the end of life for rule of law.When three Estates and the Fourth was also figured in the revealing tapes, it was the Fifth Estate, including netizen with the web technology that really exercised freedom of expression and kept the issue in lime light to serve the right to know of India.
After due authorization from the Home Ministry the Indian Income Tax department tapped Radia's phone lines for 300 days in 2008-2009 as part of their investigations into possible money laundering, restricted financial practices, and tax evasion. The tapes revealed that Radia had frequent conversations with politicians, A. Raja, former Telecommunication and IT Minister, Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha MP, Journalists, Barkha Dutt, Group editor, English news, NDTV, M.K. Venu, senior business journalist, Prabhu Chawla, editor of India Today magazine, Rajdeep Sardesai, Shankar Aiyar, then with India Today Group, Vir Sanghvi, HT advisory editorial director, Industry Heads, Ratan Tata, Tata Group, Tarun Das, former CII head, (Mention of) Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries, and Ranjan Bhattacharya (foster son-in-law of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee), Suhel Seth, management guru and columnist.
In one of the tapes, an unidentified interlocutor asks Ms Radia, whose clients include both Mr. Tata and Mukesh Ambani, why “you people [i.e. the Mukesh Ambani group] are supporting [Raja] like anything ... when the younger brother [Anil Ambani] is the biggest beneficiary of the so called spectrum allocation”. “Issue bahut complex hai,” Ms Radia replies. “ Mere client Tatas bhi beneficiary rahein hain (my client, the Tatas, have also been a beneficiary).” [1]
There was another crucial conversation between Ratnam, Chartered Accountant of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s third wife Rajathiammal, Rajathiammal herself and Niira Radia, on June 13, 2010, more than three weeks after the UPA II Cabinet had been formed and A.Raja had been successfully planted as the Telecom Minister and Dayanidhi Maran, was kept out, as desired by Ratan Tata and also Mukesh Ambani, as conversations of Radia with others clearly indicated.[2]
It is also reported that Tata through Voltas (a Tata group organization) is in touch with Niira Radia and Ratnam, CA of (Rajathi)Ammal, wife of (Chief Minister) M.Karunanidhi,. They are apparently going to construct a building in Chennai on a land controlled by “TRIL” (Tata Realty and Infrastructure ltd.) with the Karunanidhi family as a payoff to DMK for keeping Maran out of Telecom (ministry).
Privacy for whom?
Privacy is a right for private persons and also for private affairs of public persons. It is illegal, illogical and unreasonable for public persons to claim privacy for their public activities such as governance, policy making, industry, corporation, formation of ministry and politics. Privacy should not be mistaken with secret business operations causing harm to public institutions. Once a crime is committed, the suspicious persons need to be interrogated or investigated. Those suspected or involved cannot claim privacy and ask for protection of their identity, criminal secrets as privacy as part of right to life. Secret lobbying behind 2G spectrum corruption has to be probed into. Looking into authorized recorded tapes is a required and legitimate process and if it reveals the conversation of big people with political lobbyists, which insist on somebody to be made Telcom minister or not to be made. If these tapes are blocked, the rich and powerful brokers would get emboldened to adjust the deals to escape from the long hands of law. Right to privacy is not secrecy or facility for hiding unethical deals and cornering state wealth through manipulations. If criminals or suspects seek this right no crime could be probed anywhere in the world.
If Tata, Burkha Dutt, Vir Singhvi and others who figured in Radia tapes and Radia herself feel defamed by these revelations, they can test their right to reputation by suing publishers. Certainly they do not have Article 21 protection here. That right is available for victims of crime but not to criminals or their helpers.
Read more at http://www.goforthelaw.com/index.php/browsearticles/loadarticleview/141.html
Follow Prof. Madabhushi Sridhar, Professor, NALSAR at http://madabhushi.goforthelaw.com/
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