The Prime Minister's Office had forwarded the complaint into the scandal, dubbed 'Essar Tapes', to the Home Ministry.
Highlights
- Rogue police officers carried out illegal phone taps earlier: Sources
- Hence the probe into the Mumbai police role, they said
- IB may carry out informal inquiry to establish extent of taps: Sources
The investigation into the Essar phone tapping scandal is likely to focus on the role of the Mumbai police, a senior government official has said.
Senior officials said in the past, rogue police officers have been known to carry out illegal phone taps. A similar role of the Mumbai police in the taps, that encompassed ministers, bureaucrats and businessmen for 6 years since 2001 could not be ruled out.
The home ministry had ordered a probe into an alleged phone tapping scandal after a complaint was made to the Prime Minister's Office by Supreme Court lawyer Suren Uppal. Mr Uppal claims to represent a former employee of Essar, Albasit Khan, who allegedly carried out the phone taps.
The government, however, is yet to decide on nature and scope of the inquiry.
Government sources said the Intelligence Bureau, or IB, may be tasked to carry out an informal inquiry to establish the extent of the illegal taps. "A formal inquiry by an organisation like the CBI may happen after the IB gives its report," a senior official said.
"We are not sure whether offence, if any, revealed in the tapped conversation can be investigated, because the conversations have been tapped illegally," the officer said.
The Essar Group has denied the charges, saying they have been the victim of an extortion attempt.
Earlier this month, The Indian Express newspaper and Outlook magazine had first reported that Essar had allegedly tapped phones of several cabinet ministers, business chiefs Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani and many bureaucrats over five years when the NDA government of Atal Vihari Vajpayee and the UPA-1 led by the Congress were in power. .
According to the Express, the purported conversations reveal "widespread peddling of influence in corridors of power, 'corruption in the business milieu,' brokering of deals and blurring of lines between business and government".
The row had triggered a political controversy, with the Opposition parties turning up the heat on the government and demanding an investigation.