Free Speech Tracker

List of Incidents in Delhi -> Surveillance -> 2011
No phone taps for tax evasion
Ref: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Taxmen-cant-tap-calls-to-detect-mere-evasion/articleshow/8095543.cms
Taxmen can't tap calls to detect mere evasion

New Delhi

The Cabinet Secretariat has stressed that mere tax evasion does not constitute a valid ground for interception of phones, in a clarification aimed at removing all ambiguities on whether taxmen are equipped to eavesdrop on conversations of citizens.

In keeping with the Supreme Court's ruling that phone taps must be justified by reason of a "public emergency" or "public safety", the Cabinet Secretariat has said income tax laws do not always impinge on public safety. "It is clarified that the law does not permit use of telephone tapping and monitoring of conversations to merely detect tax evasion," the Cabinet Secretariat said in a statement.

The clarification was in response to an inter-ministerial dispute over whether Central Board of Direct Taxes should be included among the agencies authorized to tap phone. The Cabinet Secretariat has ruled that it is not, based on the reasoning that income tax laws fall within civil jurisdiction.

There are specific laws and rules with provisions for detection of unaccounted wealth and evasion of taxes, and interception of telephones without 'public emergency' or 'public safety' being at stake is not in accordance with the law.

The issue of whether taxmen can intercept phone calls acquired prominence in the wake of leak of the intercepted conversations of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia. At the time, the Union home minister had told Rajya Sabha that government agencies were "fully authorised to tap the phones of suspected tax evaders".

The statement of the Cabinet Secretariat also tried to address any heartburn among the CBDT over being denied the power that other agencies have. It said that "recommendations made by the Cabinet Secretary reiterate this established legal position (set out by SC), which should not be seen in terms of conflicts between individuals or interest groups."