"Material Seized During Survey In Safe Custody": Income Tax Dept Informs Delhi High Court As It Disposes Of Newslaundry's Plea Concerning Data Leak

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday disposed of the plea filed by news portal Newslaundry and it's CEO Abhinandan Sekhri, after taking note of Income Tax Department's assurance that the material seized during survey is in safe custody.

Advocate Ajit Sharma appearing for the Department submitted that the data in question shall not be leaked, the concept of confidentiality enshrined under Section 138 of Income Tax Act shall be abided and the seized material will be used only in accordance with the law.

Taking the submission on record, the Bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Navin Chawla made it clear that the Department is bound by the assurance.

"I have oral instructions that the seized material is in safe custody of Income Tax Department and that it shall not be leaked. It is otherwise also illegal to leak such material. I can make a positive statement that it's in safe custody," Sharma submitted.

To this, the Bench remarked thus:

"You're not some ordinary person. You should make an endeavour that the material must not be leaked." 

The Bench added that the Income Tax Department will ensure that the seized material is in safe custody and that it's used only for the purposes of investigation.

"We will use it in accordance with law and share the same if any other agency wants it, as permissible under law," Sharma added.

"The said undertaking given by the Respondent (Income Tax Department) is accepted and the department is held bound by the same," the Court said.

The Court also granted liberty to the petitioners to agitate the prayers at the subsequent stage if the need so arises. Accordingly the plea was disposed of.

Earlier, the Court had asked the Income Tax Department to seek instructions on the portals plea, filed upon apprehending leakage of the data seized during a recent IT survey in their office.

The plea filed through Advocate Nipun Katyal, stated that they apprehend their private data, having no incriminating or relevant material for the purposes of Income Tax or any other legal proceedings, may be misused, leaked or illegally released in public domain.

"This apprehension is well founded since the Respondent did not give the hash value of the data after seizing it (which they were not entitled to do in a survey under Section 133A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ). Therefore, the Petitioners humbly submit, it is most imperative that this Hon'ble Court safeguards and preserves the right of privacy of the Petitioners and further prevents the Respondent from causing deliberate harassment by conducting repeated searches and surveys," the plea read.

Expressing a fear of the private data being released in public domain, the plea further submitted that while the IT department officials asked Newslaundry's CEO, Abhinandan Sekhri to delete personal data from the electronic devices within an hour, it was impossible to do so due to two reasons, firstly, to find out the relevant personal data in the electronic devices; and secondly to delete 190 GB of data in 1 hour. 

"This exercise at least takes 3 days. It is apposite to mention that filtering out the relevant data for the purpose of Income Tax was the job of the Officials of the Respondent Authority, rather than the Petitioners," the plea submitted.

The plea also stated that the IT officials did not give any reason to the petitioners for impounding of other irrelevant documents.

"Petitioners are into investigative journalism, the electronic devices contains sensitive journalistic data and personal data of the Petitioner No. 2. It is most humbly submitted that, if the said data is leaked, it will be an extreme breach of privacy and it will cause irreparable loss to the Petitioners," the plea read further.

Surveys were conducted by IT Department officials at the premises of Newslaundry's office on September 10.