The Outlook magazine on Friday reported the existence of a new set of ‘Essar’ tapes which purportedly contain tapped telephone conversations of influential businessmen, politicians and bureaucrats over a period of 11 years.
Among those whose telephone conversations were tapped by former Essar’s head of security and vigilance, Albasit Khan, now a whistleblower, included the Ambani brothers and many other top officials.
The audio cassettes allegedly contain a December 2002 conversation between Managing Director of RIL, Mukesh Ambani and an RIL director, Satish Seth where they are allegedly discussing how the Supreme Court was ‘managed' while another leak reportedly contains conversations between the duo over suggestions to break the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) by paying BPL Mobile founder and then member of advisory committee in the IT & Communications Ministry, Rajeev Chandrasekhar to the tune of Rs 100 - Rs 200 crore.
However, an RIL spokesperson has refuted these allegations on behalf of the company. Here is a full text of the statement:
We are shocked at reports which suggest that we have been victims of unauthorised and illegal tapping of our telephones.
Conversations attributed to us are false and appear to have been doctored by someone who seeks to defame us.
We have, at all times, abided by the law of the land both, in letter and in spirit in all our actions and business activities and any suggestion of any wrongdoing is plainly false.
The reports are unfortunate as they make allegations without accepting any responsibility for the veracity of the contents. We reserve our legal rights to act against this kind of sensationalism.
We expect the authorities to take a serious view of these alleged violations of our right to privacy if indeed there has been any illegal wire tapping. We also expect the authorities to verify the truth of these allegations and take action against these malicious falsehoods.
We will render full co-operation to any authority in ascertaining the truth and remain confident of demonstrating that the salacious allegations are false and at all times, we have abided by the law.