The BJP calls it “whistleblowing” to expose political corruption. Whatever the merits of its sting with CNN-IBN, what got buried in the noise was a crucial issue that affects the privacy of India’s 325 million phone subscribers.

When the BJP flaunted the Call Detail Records (CDRs) of the cellphone used by Sanjeev Saxena — the man who purportedly handed over the cash to the BJP MPs in the trust vote sting — to show his “links” with Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, it brushed aside the fact that obtaining the records itself was a violation of established procedure.

Not just calls made, Jaitley claimed to have used CDRs to trace Saxena’s movements from Lodhi Estate to Ferozeshah Road on July 22, the day the UPA government won the trust vote in Parliament. While details of the last 10 or 20 incoming and outgoing calls can be obtained from a mobile set, location details can be got only from the service operator.

The licence agreement cellphone service providers have with the government clearly prohibits disclosing call records of a subscriber to any third party.

When contacted, Jaitley refused to say where he got the call records from. “You reporters never reveal your sources. Why am I supposed to tell you where I got the details from?” he asked. When told that what the BJP had done was in violation of law, he said, “I have no comments to make on that”.

So how did Saxena’s CDRs reach the BJP?

... contd.