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Amar Singh

Supreme Court has lifted its 2006 gag order that restrained the media from broadcasting and publishing contents of the tapped conversations of former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh with top politicians and Bollywood stars.A bench of justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly dismissed Singh’s petition and vacated its interim order passed on February 27, 2006 restraining the media from making the contents of the conversations public.

The bench also observed that there has been suppression of facts by the politician before the court in the case.It however said that Singh may file a case against the telecom operator for illegally tapping his phone.Justice AK Ganguly who wrote the judgement for the bench which also included Justice GS Singhvi, said that no case is made out against the Centre and its authorities as they were not involved in tapping Singh’s telephone.

Bench had reserved its verdict on the petition on March 29 after hearing Singh and an NGO, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation which has opposed his plea and had sought a direction for making the tapped conversations public.The apex court had on February 27, 2006, restrained the electronic and the print media from broadcasting and publishing the contents of the tapped conversations.

Singh who was the Samajwadi Party general secretary at the time when his telephones were tapped had approached the court seeking a probe into the phone tapping and had alleged that the Congress was behind it.But later in court he withdrew the allegations against the Congress.He had pleaded that his phones were intercepted in violation of the guidelines of the apex court and the provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act and Rules.

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