Recording phone call secretly violates privacy: Chhattisgarh HC
The court said this while hearing a petition moved by a 38-year-old woman challenging the order of a family court in the Mahasamund district allowing her husband’s application in a maintenance case.
Chhattisgarh High Court (X)
BILASPUR: Recording the phone conversation of a person without the latter’s knowledge – even if the two are husband and wife – amounts to a violation of the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution, held by the Chhattisgarh High Court.
The court said this while hearing a petition moved by a 38-year-old woman challenging the order of a family court in the Mahasamund district allowing her husband’s application in a maintenance case.
The 44-year-old man moved the family court seeking a re-examination of his wife on the ground that certain conversation was recorded on the mobile phone. He sought to cross-examine and confront her with the recorded conversation.
After the family court allowed the application in an order dated October 21, 2021, she approached the High Court in 2022 challenging it.
According to her lawyer Vaibhav A. Goverdhan, the husband was trying to prove before the family court through the recorded conversation that his wife was committing adultery and hence he need not pay maintenance once they are divorced.
Citing some judgments by the Supreme Court and the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, her counsel contended that the family court committed an error of law by allowing the application as it infringed on her right to privacy.
The conversation was recorded without her knowledge and hence could not be used against her.
On October 5, Chhattisgarh High Court Justice Rakesh Mohan Pandey set aside the verdict of the family court.
“It appears that the (husband) has recorded the conversation of the (wife) without her knowledge behind her back, which amounts to the violation of her right to privacy and also the right of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the HC noted.
Noting that the right of privacy was an essential component of the right to life envisaged by Article 21, the court said it was an error of law to allow the application under section 311 of the CrPC along with the certificate issued under section 65 of the Indian Evidence Act.
