The Delhi High Court (HC) has stayed a single-judge order that upheld the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) order that directed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to collect and provide information about alleged phone tapping of a mobile user.

Hearing TRAI’s appeal against the single judge order, a bench of chief justice D.N. Patel and justice Jyoti Singh said a prima facie case for granting a stay had been made out.

The stay comes in response to a case where a mobile phone user had moved the CIC after his telecom service provider, Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi), declined his request for information on whether his phone was being tapped. Vi had claimed that the issue did not come under the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. However, the user had then moved to the TRAI, which said it did not have the information he had asked for.

As per TRAI’s representative, the authority had no information of phone tapping and surveillance, which is permitted by the Union Home Ministry under the Indian Telegraph Act.

Moreover, TRAI stated that any such information must be provided by the service provider in question.

However, counsel for the mobile phone user, who had filed a Right to Information (RTI) application seeking information on whether his phone was being tapped, stated that the issue was related to the right to privacy and that as a public authority, TRAI had the right to order the service provider to provide the requested information under the Right to Information Act.

Further, TRAI said that only law enforcement agencies are authorised to intercept or tap phones and that disclosing such information would render such activities futile. According to TRAI, instructions for intercepting a phone number are only granted by government officials of certain ranks, and such information cannot be compiled by TRAI and sent to a consumer/subscriber since it would “prejudice the sovereignty and integrity of the nation.

However, the single-judge judgement stated that TRAI was required to obtain the information from the private body and provide it to the subscriber.

As per industry sources, the court has now ordered the case for a final hearing on December 13, 2021.