Tuesday, January 24 2006 15:32 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (Jan 24, 2006) issued notices to the Centre and Delhi government on a petition filed by Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh seeking a judicial inquiry into the tapping of his telephone.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal has sought a response within two weeks from the Ministry of Telecommunications, Minister of Home Affairs, Commissioner of Police, Delhi and others on his petition also seeking laying down of guidelines for intercepting the call so that it should not be abused for achieving political gains.

Notice has not been issued to any other respondent till the next hearing.

Singh, who is carrying forward his charge on telephone tapping issue, had filed an application on January 9 seeking a direction to prosecute those found guilty in the probe.

Among the respondents, the SP General Secretary has named Congress Party through its President and private telecom major Reliance Infocomm.

However, in the fresh petition filed yesterday, he added other private telecom players like Idea Cellular, Tata Indicom, Bharti Cellular and Hutch as respondents.

Besides the two Ministries; Telecom and Home, he has also included Delhi Government and Delhi Police.

Singh claimed that apart from his telephone, the personal telephones of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, who is a Lok Sabha MP, were being also tapped.

The SP leader also referred to the reported statement of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister expressing concern on the issue of phone tapping of opposition leaders.