DoT to set penalty for phone tapping violations

The Centre will formulate detailed guidelines to plug the loopholes in phone-tapping laws within the next few days.

Sources said a broad consensus on the new laws was reached at a high-level meeting of the officials of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), telecom service providers and the home ministry today.

At the meeting, it was decided that Section 419 of the Indian Telegraph Act would be amended to incorporate the new provisions, the sources added. The home ministry has also asked the DoT to fix the penalty amount to be imposed on cellular operators found violating the phone-tapping guidelines.

Additionally, the DoT will have to determine the rank of executives from the cellular companies to be held responsible for such violations.

On its part, the home ministry will specify the penalty (with regard to the maximum jail term and circumstances under which bail can be granted) and also the ranks of officers in both intelligence agencies and the police who will be authorised to issue orders for tapping.

This is because operators had said that the police officials often forced them to tap phones of suspects without the necessary paper work.

The sources also added that the period for seeking permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs to tap phones would be reduced to 3-5 days from the 15 days at present.

While adopting stricter verification norms for pre-paid customers was not discussed, cellular operators were concerned that any further tightening of the controls may impact the robust growth of mobile services in the country. Close to 80 per cent of India's 75 million mobile users fall under the pre-paid category.