The supreme court on Wednesday lifted its ban order on the media restraining it from broadcasting and publishing contents of the taped conversations of former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh with top politicians and Bollywood stars.

Briefly, Singh’s contention was that tapping was illegal and the conversations were private, so they should not be published. But a public interest litigation (PIL) had sought publication of the tapes arguing they pertained to fixing deals at the cost of the exchequer.

The order is likely to open several cans of worms. Top industrialist Ratan Tata has gone to the same court with a similar case and the hearing has been going on. Tata’s chief grouse – that his privacy was at stake and what was taped for investigation purposes should be used only for investigation and the rest of us should not know about it – may not stand, going by the court’s stance in Singh’s case.

In the early reports on Tuesday’s judgment, it is not clear if the court weighed in the arguments on the either side of the privacy versus public interest debate. But Tata’s case stands obviously weakened now.

For one, the authorisation for tapping Amar Singh’s phone was forged, but in Tata’s case it was perfectly legal. Secondly, if the Amar Singh tapes can be disclosed in public interest as they arguably deal with matters involving the exchequer, why not Tata’s conversations with his PR consultant Niira Radia?

Some of the Radia tapes are, of course, out, but there are many more of them that we have not heard. While the investigating agency that authorised the tapping is (let’s assume) making use of it in its probe in the 2G scam, people at large should also know how deals are made. After all, don’t we value what we came to know from the Radia tapes about our reputed journalists like Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi? Who knows which other respected personalities are singing what before that PR woman in the remaining tapes?

Gag order lifted

A bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly dismissed Singh's petition and vacated its interim order passed on February 27, 2006 restraining the media from making contents of the conversation public, PTI reported.

The bench also said that there has been suppression of facts by the politician before the court in the case.

The court, however, said the politician may file a case against Reliance Infocomm for illegally tapping his phone.

Justice Ganguly, who wrote the judgment for the bench, said that no case is made out against the centre and its authorities as they were not involved in tapping Singh's telephone.

The bench had reserved its verdict on Singh's petition on March 29 after hearing him and an NGO, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), which has opposed his plea and had sought a direction for making public all his tapped conversations.

Singh, who was the Samajwadi Party general secretary at the time when his telephones were tapped, had earlier accused the Congress through its president and private telecom operator Reliance Infocomm of being behind the tapping but had later withdrawn his allegations against the Congress.

Tata’s grouse

Tata moved to the supreme court late last year after the contents of the Radia tapes were published in the media. He has urged the court to take action against those who leaked the tapes as it violates his fundamental right, the right to privacy – which has been equated with the right to life – apart from freedom of speech.

Tata has also requested the court to stop the publication of the remaining tapes. In an interview to NDTV, he said the tapes should be used for the purpose of prosecution alone and should not be made public.

In his petition, he has said that several parts (not all) of the conversation were purely private in nature, spoken casually and should not be taken seriously.

The petition has also cited the supreme court guidelines in a PUCL case in which it held that the phone surveillance could be done only for a specific purpose.