The Hindu : Hearing begins in SC on communication interception

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Thursday, Apr 17, 2003

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Hearing begins in SC on communication interception

By Our Legal Correspondent

New Delhi April 16. The Supreme Court today began hearing on an appeal filed by the Delhi Government challenging the Delhi High Court order holding that interception of telephonic communication would not be an admissible evidence under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in the `December 13 Parliament attack case'.

Senior counsel for the Delhi Police, Gopal Subramaniam, traced the sequence of events, before and after the attack, before a Bench comprising Justice S.N. Variava and Justice Brijesh Kumar, and the role played by the accused S.A.R. Geelani, Shaukat Hussain alias Guru, Mohd. Afzal and Navjot Sandhu alias Afsan Guru.

He said POTA was invoked against the accused on December 19, 2001, after the police got specific information about the conspiracy and the involvement of Maulana Masood Azhar and Ghazi Baba, top Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists.

The Special Court, on July 11 last, had held that intercepted conversation between accused Geelani, Hussain and his wife, Afsan, was admissible evidence under POTA.

But, on appeal from the accused, the High Court by an order on October 30 last rejected it and held that unless prior sanction was obtained for intercepting telephonic talk, the same could not be accepted for consideration while framing of charges.

Counsel submitted that the High Court order was erroneous as it had failed to notice that Chapter 5 of the POTA applied only to the transcripts, which were obtained ''pursuant'' to that Chapter and prohibition under Sec. 45 applied only to transcripts collected under that Chapter.

He said intercepts made in pursuance of Chapter 5 of POTA were automatically admissible as relevant evidence unlike evidence of intercepts collected under the Telegraph Act wherein it was incumbent on the prosecution to prove the relevancy and adhere to the tests laid down in the judgment in `Ram Singh's case'.

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