Supreme Court ends ban on publishing of Amar Singh's taped conversations

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New Delhi, May 11 ): The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday lifted its gag order on the media that restrained the latter from broadcasting and publishing former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh's taped conversations with top politicians and Bollywood stars. A two-judge bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly dismissed Amar Singh's petition to prevent the broadcasting and publishing of his taped conversations, and vacated its interim order passed on February 27, 2006 restraining the media from making contents of the conversation public. The bench also opined that there has been suppression of facts by the politician before the court in the case. The court, however, said the politician may file a case against Reliance Infocomm for illegally tapping his phone. Justice A K Ganguly, who wrote the judgement for the bench which also included Justice G S Singhvi, said that no case is made out against the Central Government and its authorities as they were not involved in tapping Singh's telephone. The bench had reserved its verdict on Singh's petition on March 29 after hearing him and an NGO, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), which has opposed his plea and had sought a direction for making public all his tapped conversations. The apex court had on February 27, 2006, restrained the electronic and the print media from broadcasting and publishing the contents of the tapped conversations of all, including those of Singh. Singh, who was the Samajwadi Party general secretary at the time when his telephones were tapped, had earlier accused the Congress through its President and private telecom operator Reliance Infocomm, of being behind the tapping but had later withdrawn his allegations against the Congress.