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The Delhi High Court today sought a detailed report from Centre on the law and procedure followed by the Union of India for monitoring and interception of phone calls of citizens in India.

The order was passed by the division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh on a plea filed by Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) against the generalized system of surveillance put in place by the Government of India, allegedly in violation of the right to privacy of individuals.

Referring to the recent Pegasus Spyware controversy, Sr. Adv. Prashant Bhushan appearing for Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL)  submitted that it was a targeted monitoring system which involved judges as well.

However, in the present petition Bhushan submitted that the petitioner was aggrieved by the generalized surveillance system which involved Central Monitoring System (CMS), National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) and Network and Traffic Analys (NETRA).

While the CMS gives India's security agencies and income tax officials centralized access to the country’s telecommunications network, NATGRID provides information such as bank details, details of airline ticket booking, and NETRA scans information going through the web.

Bhushan submitted that the Indian monitoring systems have been put in place for getting substantial information about phone calls, SMSes, emails and others, which is against the Supreme Court judgement in Puttaswamy’s case.

Bhushan also referred to Justice Sri Krishna Committee’s report according to which around 7500-9000 phone tappings are conducted by the Union Government which is done after seeking permission from the Home Secretary. 

Bhushan submitted that Justice Krishna had observed that it was impossible to seek permission from the Home Secretary for so many tappings conducted by the Centre.

Bhushan also pointed out that though the Centre had filed an affidavit stating that the procedure was being followed in accordance with law, however no response was filed with regard to CMS, NATGRID and NETRA. Even subsequently an affidavit was filed, but no response was filed on the three systems.

In this regard, Bhushan urged the Court to direct a committee headed by Justice Srikrishna or Justice Shah to go into the issue and give a report to the court.

SGI Tushar  Mehta joined the Video Conferencing while the matter was being heard.

Mehta said, "I am not in this matter but since I heard Mr. Bhushan I thought it will be worth hearing."

Mehta submitted that according Section 69 of the Information Technology Act provides the procedure for interception and monitoring of data and sought time for filing a detailed affidavit in this regard.

The court has listed the matter for next hearing on Sep 30.

Case Title: CPIL vs UOI