The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to respond to a petition challenging laws that allow the government to conduct electronic surveillance of private individuals.
The petition, filed by the PUCL, represented by advocate Sanjay Paeikh, has sought urgent safeguards and judicial oversight of government surveillance. It has challenged Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, read with Rule 419-A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951, as well as Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, together with the Information Technology (Procedure for Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009.
The PIL petition was filed in the background of the controversy over the government’s December 2018 notification authorising 10 agencies to initiate electronic surveillance.
9,000 orders
The PUCL highlighted the data, obtained under the Right to Information Act, that showed 7,500-9,000 orders for interception of phone calls and up to 500 orders for interception of emails were passed every month, in an indiscriminate use of surveillance powers.
The petition pointed out that there have been several changes in the constitutional landscape.
“Most significantly, a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court upheld the right to privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 and articulated a ‘triple test’ for permissible restriction — legality, which postulates the existence of law; need, defined in terms of a legitimate state aim; and proportionality, which ensures a rational nexus between the objects and the means adopted to achieve them,” the PUCL petition said.
Any order for phone-tapping should be sanctioned by the judicial authority to prevent arbitrary and politically motivated decisions, it said.