So you think you’ve already heard the damning evidence in 2G-Gate, Radia-Gate, Barkha-Gate, Raja-Gate, or whatever you want to call it?
Well, think again.
Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said in an interview to the Wall Street Journal that the roughly 100 tapes that have been leaked to the Indian media – recordings of wiretapped calls between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and the country’s journalistic and political power brokers – barely scratch the surface of the stuff that will be at the heart of the government’s investigation.
The tapes that have come out contain only “juicy elements†meant by the leakers to “titillate†the media, he said, while the remaining 5,000-plus recordings contain the details that will actually assist investigators as they draw up formal charges against wrongdoers.
“The investigation part is much more, which has not yet come out,†said Mr. Pillai, the top bureaucrat in the Home Ministry, which oversees domestic security issues and approves wiretap requests by central government agencies. “The parts that have come out aren’t really connected to the investigation.â€
What’s gotten the most attention from the calls released thus far, as India Real Time has reported in detail, are questions of media ethics and integrity stemming from the dealings Hindustan Times columnist Vir Sanghvi and NDTV group editor Barkha Dutt had with Ms. Radia; a trove of conversations on the formation of the Indian Cabinet last year; and the Ambani brothers’ feud.
Apparently none of that has anything to do with the legal case going forward. Mr. Pillai said he gave the go-ahead to bug Ms. Radia’s phone to further a tax-evasion investigation. Asked how that probe is connected to the controversial allocation of so-called 2G mobile phone spectrum in 2008, he would only say that the potentially illegal movement of funds in and out of India is being scrutinized closely. He declined to offer further specifics on who will likely be charged and for what specifically.
One of Ms. Radia’s public relations firms, Vaishnavi Group, has said that the company is “fully transparent†and that the lobbyist is cooperating with financial authorities. The firm declined to immediately comment further on Monday.
Mr. Pillai said the leaking of the Radia tapes has spooked India’s corporate establishment, with honchos of India Inc. now calling him to find out if they, too, are being tapped. (Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata, whose firm is one of Ms. Radia’s clients, has told India’s Supreme Court that the disclosure of recordings of his personal conversations with her that were totally unrelated to the government’s probe violated his privacy.)
Mr. Pillai said the fears of widespread wiretapping are much exaggerated and that he follows strict guidelines in approving any surveillance.
He said the government has about 6,000 to 8,000 wiretaps happening at any point, and only about 3% to 5% of them are for corporate or white-collar investigations. wow
Investigators must show him some evidence that a suspect has done something illegal – a document, an email, a bank statement.
Each wiretap can go for a maximum of 60 days before his approval must be sought again. And Mr. Pillai’s authorizations are reviewed every two weeks by a board including the telecom secretary, Cabinet secretary and law secretary, he says.
Meanwhile, elected politicians at both the state and central government levels are not wiretapped as a matter of policy, he says. The only way investigators could hear their conversations is if they happened to be caught on the other end of the line talking to a bugged individual, as happened when Ms. Radia had phone conversations with former telecom minister A. Raja about the status of his position in the cabinet appointments that followed last year’s election. (Those calls were among those that were leaked.)
Mr. Pillai said he is concerned that the Radia tapes leaked and is awaiting the results of a government inquiry into how the disclosure happened.
But he said all the Radia tapes will likely become public at some point anyway, since the Supreme Court has asked for a full set of copies and can be petitioned to release them eventually. Then, “u can’t do pick and choose,†he said. “Everything will come out.â€
