Former Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata claimed before the Supreme Court on Friday that the tapped phone conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen, including him, were leaked to the media due to corporate rivalry.
Appearing before a bench headed by justice GS Singhvi, Tata’s counsel senior advocate Harish Salve argued that the order for tapping of Radia’s phone was passed because of extraneous reasons.
“If corporate battle had not happened, this would not have come out in public,” he said.
Salve told the bench that Tata Telecommunications itself gets around 10,000 to 15,100 requests from the government every year for interception of calls. He questioned the Centre’s failure for not finding out who leaked the tapped conversation.
Salve submitted there was no proper mechanism to go through tapped conversations to find out the relevant information and destroy private parts. “Privacy of a person has to be respected,” he contended. Salve further said the leak of the tapped conversations by the investigating agency has set a dangerous trend. “We don’t know why it was leaked and to embarrass whom,” he submitted.