Centre asked to reply to Tata plea on Radia tapes

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the government to file a response to the Tata group chairman’s plea, seeking a copy of its probe report on the infamous Radia tapes.

A bench of justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhyaya has set the Centre a deadline of three weeks. 

The government had earlier claimed that the tapes recorded by the Income Tax authorities and broadcast by some media organisations were tampered.
The Centre has however been reluctant in sharing the probe report.

The government, on January 31, had told the bench that its agencies were not responsible for the leakage of the tapes which were published by two magazines.

It had submitted that eight to 10 agencies, including the service providers, were involved in tapping the telephonic conversations between corporate lobbyist Nira Radia and several influential people.

The bench, going through a few pages of the report, had said the starting and the end point of the conversation did not match with the original tapes.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the Tatas on November 29, 2010 seeking action against those involved in leaking the tapes.  Ratan Tata had alleged that the action amounted to infringement of his fundamental right, which included his right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution.