NEW DELHI: The Union government is framing a common set of guidelines for the seizure and handling of documents, in digital or paper form, by investigative agencies in connection with their probes, amid indications that the focus is on devising ways to exclude personal chats and documents unrelated to alleged offences from the purview of probes.
Supreme Court had recently put on hold recovery of all digital records, whether related or unrelated to alleged offence, from lottery king Santiago Martin’s iPhone, which was seized by ED along with Rs 12 crore of unaccounted cash during a search on his premises in Nov. Martin had moved the apex court seeking to restrain the central agency from recovering digital records, arguing that his iPhone contained personal chats unrelated to the money laundering probe against him.
Giving relief to Martin, SC bunched together hearing of his case with the one filed by Amazon, which is scheduled to be heard on Jan 6 when govt is likely to disclose the steps it has initiated on formulating guidelines on seizure of digital and other records during search and survey operations.
The exclusion of personal conversations is expected to meet the concerns about the violation of privacy – something which has often been a ground in diverse jurisdictions to get the probes paused.
Agencies contend that in the internet age, with criminals using electronic devices for transmitting messages and storing documents related to their unlawful activities, govt and court should not be losing sight of their operational requirements.
Amazon, too, has challenged ED’s demand for copies of all its emails with its vendors in connection with an ongoing probe related to foreign direct investments (FDI) in violation of FEMA rules. On Nov 7, ED had carried out searches at 19 premises in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Panchkula at main vendors of Amazon and Flipkart in the FEMA violations case.
The probe against the e-commerce giants is to ascertain whether they had engaged in predatory pricing through their preferred vendors, in violations of FDI rules, and directly or indirectly influenced the sale price of goods or services on their platforms, and not provided a level-playing field to other sellers.
The agency had recovered a lot of documents from vendors of e-commerce giants, which prima facie revealed an alleged attempt to influence pricing of goods sold through preferred vendors. This evidence, sources said, would be corroborated with the communications the e-sellers had with their vendors.
In Martin’s case, SC had also stayed summons issued to him by the agency where the latter had asked him to join the probe to corroborate certain evidence seized during the Nov 14 searches on his premises in Chennai and Kolkata.
An official with a probe agency said a detailed guideline issued by the govt and approved by SC may help agencies in time-bound completion of investigation and trial of cases as frequent challenges disrupt the proceedings.
