Rajasthan HC quashes orders of home department for phone surveillance

Jaipur, July 5 The Rajasthan High Court has quashed orders issued by the state home department to put on surveillance telephone numbers of an RAS officer and revenue board member and others for the anti-corruption board to investigate a case.

The orders for phone interception were issued on October 28 and December 28, 2020 and March 17, 2021.

The single bench of Justice Birendra Kumar on Tuesday said that orders issued by the home department suffered from arbitrariness and constituted violation of fundamental rights.

The Court had directed the ACB to destroy the intercepted messages and recordings and said that they could not be used in pending criminal proceedings against the accused, said Mohit Khandelwal, counsel for petitioner.

It needs to be mentioned here that the home department had put on surveillance the telephone numbers of RAS officers and revenue board member Sunil Sharma, lawyer Shashikant Joshi and others for a case being investigated by ACB.