Preserving Mobile Tower Location Of Police Officer Does Not Cause Danger To Security Or Violation Of Privacy: Punjab & Haryana High Court

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has made it clear that there is no violation of the right to privacy in preserving the tower location of a police officer who allegedly falsely implicated an accused in a drugs case.

Justice Sanjiv Berry said, "the petitioner has disputed the alleged time and place of alleged recovery and to establish that aspect in his defence he has sought the preserving of the tower locations of the mobile phones mentioned in the application... Simply preserving the tower locations of said mobile phones would not in any manner cause any danger to the security of the said police officials nor will it effect their privacy because the calls made or received by them will not in any manner come in open domain."

The Court was hearing the plea of one Chhinder Pal Singh, challenging the order of a trial court wherein his application for preserving call details, records and location of the mobile numbers had been dismissed.

According to the prosecution, Singh was involved in trading Opium and he was arrested along with a co-accused with 5kg of opium was effected from the petitioner, hence the FIR under Section 17(c) of NDPS Act, Section 27A/29 NDPS was registered.

Disputing the place and manner of arrest during the course of the trial, the petitioner moved an application to preserve the call details record and location of mobile numbers of the officials. He argued that the drugs were planted. However, the plea was dismissed.

 After hearing the submissions, the Court noted, "in the present case, the petitioner has raised contentions that the police party had planted the recovery and also disputed the manner of his arrest and this aspect could be verified by observing the tower locations of the mobile phones used by the police party at the relevant time when he was allegedly arrested."

This certainly goes to the root of the matter related to his implication or innocence in the instant case, added the Court.

"In view of the categorical stand by the petitioner regarding disputing the time and place of arrest by the police officials, purpose and relevance of seeking tower location, are obvious for the purpose of disputing the claim of the police officials in this regard by making an effort to establish it by way of electronic evidence," the bench said.

Justice Berry opined that the trial Court overlooked the fact that preserving the tower locations of the mobile phones used at the relevant time as mentioned in the application would in fact help the Court to arrive at a just conclusion.

However the Court clarified that in view of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy and another v. Union of India, "a balancing exercise is necessitated as at one hand there is the right of the petitioner to summon relevant electronic records required for his defence, while on the other hand, police officials' daily activities may also not be exposed."

The Court also noted that the Central Government, electronic records are preserved by the telecom companies only for a limited period and therefore, timely preservation of these records is necessary.

The court added that the petitioner would have to move the application seeking the preservation of the tower locations of the mobile numbers mentioned in the application as otherwise, the telecom companies would delete it after a specific period.

In light of the above, the Court set aside the order of the Trial Court and directed the mobile tower locations of the phone numbers mentioned in the application to be preserved by the respective telecom companies for the periods mentioned in the application.

Mr. Gaurav Datta, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Surender Singh, AAG, Haryana.

Title: Chhinder Pal Singh v. State of Haryana

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (PH) 209

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