The Home Department of the Maharashtra government will soon be conducting an inquiry into allegations of "misuse of phone tapping by previous governments."
The state's Home Department has, according to Anil Deshmukh, received many complaints in the last few days from political parties and leaders about the same.
In a statement, Deshmukh said, "This seems to be a very serious issue and hence needs to be attended on priority. The power of keeping phones on surveillance commonly referred to as phone tapping and the authority to take out phone related records like call data record etc. has alleged to have been grossly misused by the authorities specially in the last one year for vested interest and political gain."
Taking to Twitter, the state Home Minister added that this was an abuse of power and "violates right to freedom and privacy as enshrined in the Constitution of India". He also termed it a "national security threat".
Deshmukh said that it was imperative that a comprehensive enquiry be conducted on the issue of "keeping phones under surveillance of political rivals and other persons for vested interest".
"A comprehensive inquiry will be conducted within 6 weeks by a 2 member committee of Shri Shrikant Singh (IAS) ACS Home & Shri Amitesh Kumar (IPS) Joint Commissioner of Intelligence," he tweeted.
According to Deshmukh, the inquiry would take into account the provisions of the India Telegraph Act and "whether the legal provisions had been followed in both letter and spirit and whether any malatide is manifested". It would also seek the aid of technical experts to "decipher if unofficial surveillance has been carried out by tracing the footprint in the servers of various telecom companies through physical verifications and visits".
Earlier this year, in January, Deshmukh had accused the previous BJP government in the state of tapping the phones of Congress and NCP leaders.
"When the BJP government was in power in Maharashtra, before the general and legislative assembly elections, they tapped phones of NCP and Congress leaders to keep a tab on their activities. They sent their officials to Israel to get the software for phone-tapping. We have started an investigation of the matter," Deshmukh had told reporters.
His comments later seemed to find support in NCP chief, Sharad Pawar.
"It is not new, we all know our phones are tapped. Hence, we never thought about it seriously," Pawar said.
Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut had at the same time taken to Twitter to say that a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party had informed him about the tapping of his phone.
Former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has however denied the accusation, stating that phone tapping was not the culture of the state and that his government had not given any such orders.
