HimVani
Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal today denied allegations lodged by opposition members over alleged tapping of telephones of political leaders in the state. Replying to a debate on annual budget for 2011-12, he said that a high power committee headed by state Chief Secretary has been constituted to look after the complaints of phone tapping.
“We have written to central government that the state will not allow telephone tapping”, said Dhumal, while he added that state government has constituted a committee for keeping the government abreast about telephone tapping issue. “Government has only allowed tapping of telephones of criminals,’ said Dhumal. He observed that opposition has charged the state government to even tape the phones of Chief Minister Office, but he argued that there was no reason for him to tap his telephone calls and accusation is baseless. He said that if any members have complaints of phone taping they could file complaints with the committee and government would lodge probe into each complaint. He said that apart from Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary Law and other officials of same rank form the high power committee.
