Radia tapes submitted to SC; decision on 22 January

Transcripts of 5,800 tapped telephone conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and politicians, corporate heads including former Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata, and journalists were yesterday placed by the government before the Supreme Court.

The court said that it will make a random scrutiny of the transcripts of what have become infamous as the Radia tapes to decide whether further investigation is required on the basis of the contents of the telephonic conversations.

''We will go through the envelopes (containing the transcripts) to decide what course of action can be taken,'' a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya said. They added that the court would pass an order on the issue on 22 January.

The income tax department submitted 38 volumes of transcripts in a sealed cover in addition to the 10 volumes of Radia tape transcripts it had already submitted to the court.

Excerpts from the tapes earlier leaked in the media had sparked a political storm, with the conversations bringing out the nature of corporate lobbying and its impact on politics. Some well-known journalists were also apparently exposed as slanting their stories to benefit corporate houses.

The conversations were recorded as part of a surveillance of Radia's phone on a complaint by the income tax department to the finance minister on 16 November 2007, alleging that within a span of nine years she had built up a business empire worth Rs300 crore.