Specify importance of right to privacy

Right to privacy continues to be an ambiguous term as far as the constitution and penal laws are concerned. But it’s not an insignificant constitutional guarantee without which the right to life [article 21] becomes lifeless.

The ever-upgrading information tools that have become an integral part of life have made end users vulnerable to breach of privacy.

Mobile phones have made landlines almost obsolete and people are talking away to their heart’s contest, unmindful of the fact that someone somewhere might be eavesdropping and recording intercepts for unknown use.

Mobile subscribers come to know of breach of privacy only when intercepts of their conversations are used in the form of a criminal lawsuit or the transcripts become cold print in a journal or newspaper.

Law permits authorities to intercept communications between two or more persons. But they are liable to destroy the transcripts once their legal purpose is served.

The authorities are bound by a procedure laid down by the Supreme Court [SC] about two decades ago. SC didn’t find fault in investigating agencies intercepting links between certain terrorism accused. But the right to privacy is meaningless if it’s misused for destroying a community.

Investigating agencies have been directed not feed the media with select inputs that could harm the reputation of a person.

The leakage of intercepts concerning some well-known persons, as has been suspected in the spectrum tapping case, could drive the unsolved right-to-privacy controversy to a different level of dispensation.

There is a strong case for laying down revised guidelines and procedure for tapping phones.

No doubt the fundamental rights guaranteed to citizens can’t be taken for a ride. But sometimes certain rights that are suspected to have been misused could be put to risk.

SC can at least ensure that the reputation and life of the innocent are not put to risk in the process.