MVA orders high level probe into phone tapping of political leaders during Fadnavis govt

Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil on Tuesday announced a high-level inquiry into the alleged phone tapping of opposition leaders during Devendra Fadnavis led government in 2016-17. The allegations of phone tapping were levelled by Congress MLA and state party president Nana Patole earlier this year.

Speaking on the second day of the two-day Monsoon assembly session, Walse Patil ordered for a high-level inquiry and said the report on it will be tabled in the House in the next legislative assembly session.

"A high-level inquiry will be conducted and action will be taken," the Maharashtra Home Minister said while adding that police officers need to provide telephone numbers and reasons for surveillance while seeking permission for it from the additional chief secretary (Home).

Nana Patole alleges phone tapping

Earlier this year, Nana Patole had alleged that phones of several important political leaders from NCP, BJP, and Shiv Sena as well as those of IAS and IPS officers, were tapped during the erstwhile BJP led government.

While contending that even his phone was tapped, Nana Patole had then claimed that the phone tapping was carried out under the pretext of exposing drug trafficking.

During the assembly session, Water Resource Minister Jayant Patil demanded to know how many legislators were under surveillance while Patole sought to know the phone tapping was conducted under whose instructions.

"My phone number was also tapped by wrongly showing that it belonged to one Amjad Khan...Linking my name to drug trafficking is condemnable. Who allowed it and for what? This is a crime and infringement of an individual's privacy," he had then said while accusing the erstwhile government of phone tapping.

'Why was my phone number linked to a Muslim name and a drug peddler. Didn't the officials know I was an MP (at that time)?' he asked as Dilip Walse Patil called for a probe into the allegations. 

The Congress leader had then said that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government should institute a high-level probe and punish the guilty. Patole had quit the BJP in December 2017 when he was a BJP MP and later returned to the Congress.

(With PTI inputs)