Sources revealed that the sanction issued to the IT to tap telephone conversations since October 2006 needed to be ratified by the Union Cabinet of ministers.
MUMBAI: A day after DNA ran the story ‘Beware, Income Tax sleuths are tapping corporate conversations’, eyebrows are being raised over the legal propriety of the sanction given to I-T sleuths to tap phone conversations over the past eight months.
Sources also revealed that the sanction issued to the Income Tax (investigations wing) to tap telephone conversations since October 2006 needed to be ratified by the Union Cabinet of ministers before being enforced.
According to a senior official, “The Supreme Court had clearly mandated that if any new central agency was to be permitted to intercept telephone conversations, the same had to be ratified first by the Union Cabinet meeting chaired by the Prime Minister of India.”
However, a senior I-T official on condition of anonymity told DNA: “The Union home secretary is the sanctioning authority for phone tapping applications made by the I-T department on a case by case basis.
The I-T department is using this facility only to track down on cases of Banking Cash Transaction Tax (BCTT) and where large banking transactions are being carried out to facilitate terrorist organisations.”
The official, however, could not confirm whether the cabinet approval was secured for the sanction given to the I-T department for phone tapping.
Also, the I-T department’s functioning being of a civil nature, the permissibility for the agency to conduct phone taps is being viewed with scepticism by other intelligence agencies.
A senior intelligence official told DNA: "If the I-T department, which has no power to arrest people, is permitted phone tapping then the constitution of the agency has to be suitably modified.
Agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence which are permitted phone tapping powers, are more cut out to track such cash transactions by terror outfits. They also have been set up exclusively for meeting such concerns."
The senior I-T official, however, clarified that the I-T department would not seek to intercept phone conversations of corporate honchos or any of its Rs4 crore assesses.
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