Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

15. He submitted that the intercepted calls cannot be discarded at this stage and during the course of the trial, the concerned witness will be called for proving the orders of Ministry of Home Affairs.

16. He submitted that even otherwise, it is settled law that the test of admissibility of evidence is to be seen on the basis of its relevancy and a similar contention for expunging of alleged illegally intercepted phone call was rejected by the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of State (NCT of Delhi) v. Navjot Singh Sandhu@Afsan Guru : 2005 11 SCC

"12. The five circumstances laid under Section (5)(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act related to the public emergency or interest of the public safety. The authority is within the powers conferred by the Act to order for lawful interception. It would also be seen that not only the bodily injury to the members of the public or the injury to a minimum number of persons would constitute public safety. With the latest communication tools in the form of powerful mobile phones becoming available in every hand in the country which are equipped with applications ensuring encrypted communication. The available avenues with the potential criminals, have increased manifolds and it is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent and detect crime. Restricting the concept of public safety to the mere "situations that would be apparent to the reasonable persons" will exclude most of the actual threats which present the most grave circumstances like terrorist attacks, corruption at high places, economic and organized crimes, most of which are hatched in the most secretive of manners. In most of the circumstances, threat to public safety is from hidden factor which are neither apparent nor obvious to the general public and members of the law enforcement community and the information about these circumstances and factors cannot be connected by any other reasonable means. In addition, most of such information, is sensitive in nature, which may not be circulated in the public domain. Therefore, the first respondent passed the order to intercept phone messages of the petitioners herein."

"Interception of phone calls

153. The legality and admissibility of intercepted telephone calls arises in the context of telephone conversation between Shaukat and his wife Afsan Guru on 14th December at 2009 hrs and the conversation between Gilani and his brother Shah Faizal on the same day at 1222 hrs. ...It is contended by the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the two accused Shaukat and Gilani, that even Rule 419-A, has not been complied with in the instant case, and, therefore, the tape-recorded conversation obtained by such interception cannot be utilised by the prosecution to incriminate the said accused. It is the contention of the learned counsel for the State Mr Gopal Subramanium, that there was substantial compliance with Rule 419-A and, in any case, even if the interception did not take place in strict conformity with the Rule, that does not affect the admissibility of the communications so recorded. In other words, his submission is that the illegality or irregularity in the interception does not affect its admissibility in evidence there being no specific embargo against the admissibility in the Telegraph Act or in the Rules. Irrespective of the merit in the first contention of Mr Gopal Subramanium, we find force in the alternative contention advanced by him.