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NEW DELHI: Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata group of companies, may move Supreme Court on Monday against the publication of intercepts of his conversation with Niira Radia, who handles corporate communication for the group.

The head of the Rs 320,000 crore salt-to-software conglomerate feels, according to sources, that publication of intercepts of the conversation has violated his right to privacy.

Sources also said Tata holds that as Radia’s phones were tapped by government agencies specifically for investigating a possible offence, the recorded conversations should have been used for that purpose alone. He feels strongly about the publication of conversations, which have no bearing on the case under investigation.

He, however, wants to make it clear to the SC that he does not want to stand in the way of an investigation into the 2G scam in any manner.

Seeking to invoke the writ jurisidiction of the apex court for immediate relief, Tata plans to argue that as Radia’s calls were intercepted by the Income Tax department and the recordings were required to be available only toofficial agencies, it was rather surprising the conversations found their way into the media.

It was all the more intriguing as some parts of the conversation were purely private in nature, and completely unrelated to the suspected offence. The sole purpose of leaking the details was to titilate the public, Tata plans to say.

Tata’s argument is that while the taped conversation could surely be used for the purpose of investigation and bring the guilty to book, the availability of the intercepts -- supposedly in safe custody of official agencies -- with the media shows they were either stolen or leaked.

The veteran industrialist wants those who had stolen these tapes or those who leaked them to be punished.

He is preparing to cite well settled law laid down by the apex court to show that such publications clearly encroached on his private space and breached his right to privacy.

The SC had declared right to privacy as a part of right to life, the most important of the fundamental rights of a citizen.

Tata, in an interview to NDTV on Friday, had said the leak of the intercepts was meant to create a smokescreen around the real issue behind the 2G scam.

The I-T department started recording telphonic conversations of Radia, whose Vaishnavi Corporate Communications handles the PR for group companies, for suspected tax violations. It twice took Union home ministry’s approval to keep tabs on Radia’s phones.

The first permission to tap Radia’s phones was for 120 days, begining August 20, 2008, and the second, for an identical number of days, from May 11, 2009 onwards.

Of the 5,851 call intercepts detailed in the Radia tapes, which had been handed over by I-T department to CBI on November 26, 2009, for a detailed investigation into 2G spectrum scam, many are said to be conversations which were private in nature.

Interestingly, the SC had in 2006 entertained a petition from MP Amar Singh, now expelled from Samajwadi Party, to stay publication of his conversations which were unauthorisedly intercepted and put on CDs widely distributed in political circles and among media.

Later, an NGO -- Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) --had requested the SC to allow publication of the tapes saying that of the 18 conversations recorded in the CD, only three could be said to be private in nature. The rest, argued the petitioner, related to transactions of money and deal making, which could be termed as a conspiracy to commit an offence and should be probed and be allowed to be made public.

Soon after the filing of the petition, the Centre had framed new guidelines on telephone interception by police and other agencies that authorised only the home secretaries of the states and the Centre to pass orders in this regard.