Tag: Tata Group

Radia ‘s and Tata’s  claim to privacy does not hold water as their words involve policy making, attempt to bribe(refer perambalur Hospital equipment),controlling news, controlling media Funds and general disregard for Democracy in as much as they seem to manipulate Governmental policies,they , who have not been elected by people.

The sheen of sleepless night of Tata on hearing about is lost when one hears about him in the tapes as well as his donation to Raja’s Constituency.

As to Radia less said ,the better.

Ordering IAS Officers, manipulating media, influencing policy decisions and brazen attempt to fix a price for every thing.

rivacy is a right for private persons and also for private affairs of public persons. It is illogical and unreasonable for public persons to claim privacy for their public activities such as governance, policy making, industry, corporation, formation of ministry and politics. Privacy should not be mistaken with secret business operations causing harm to public institutions. Once a crime is committed, the suspicious persons need to be interrogated or investigated. Those suspected or involved cannot claim privacy and ask for protection of their identity, criminal secrets as privacy as part of right to life.

Secret lobbying behind 2G spectrum corruption has to be probed into. Looking into authorized recorded tapes is a required and legitimate process, particularly if it involves the conversation of big people with political lobbyists, which insist on somebody to be made or not to be made the Telcom minister. If these tapes are blocked, the rich and powerful brokers would get emboldened to adjust the deals to escape from the long hands of law. Right to privacy is not secrecy or facility for hiding unethical deals and cornering state wealth through manipulations. If criminals or suspects seek this right no crime could be probed anywhere in the world.

If Mr Ratan Tata, Ms Barkha Dutt, Mr Vir Singhvi and others who figured in Radia tapes and Ms Niira Radia herself feel defamed by these revelations, they can test their right to reputation by suing the publishers. Certainly they do not have Article 21 protection here. That right is available for victims of crime but not to criminals or their helpers.

Privacy is an undefined right implied in Right to Life in general. It means the right to be let alone and its object is to protect inviolate personality. It can be regarded as a fundamental human right as the presumption that individuals should have an area of autonomous development, interaction and liberty, a “private sphere” with or without interaction with others and free from State intervention and free from excessive unsolicited intervention by other uninvited individuals. [1]

Right to Information trumps Privacy

Take a recent case in the UK where the media’s right to publish certain matters like names of accused was upheld in the general interests of public. Under the UK Human Rights Act 1998, Article 8.1 requires public authorities, including the court, to respect private and family life. Three claimants (brothers) were designated under the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order (SI 2006 No 2657) as persons whom the Treasury suspected of actually or potentially facilitating terrorist acts. Asset-freezing orders were made against these claimants. As other appellate courts confirmed these orders, the case reached Supreme Court, where it was held that the general public interest in publishing a report of the proceedings in which they were named was justified curtailing their rights to private life.

A report on a study [2] on the interface between public interest, media and privacy for BBC and other State Commissions of UK concluded with a suggestion of  treating public interest as an exception to privacy: The general public put great value and importance on media information or coverage which promotes the general good, for the well-being of all. These include the identification of wrongdoing and of the wrongdoers themselves, with the media acting as guardians of shared moral and social norms. Under these conditions, and with suitable regard to the relative severity of the individual case, individuals’ privacy can be intruded upon – in extreme cases it should be – in the name of the greater good. [3]

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?269664