FIR against LDF dissident legislator P V Anvar for alleged illegal phone tapping

LDF MLA P V Anvar.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The Kottayam police have registered a first information report against mutinous Left Democratic Front (LDF) legislator P V Anvar based on an illegal wiretapping complaint filed by a private citizen. 

Mr. Anvar had triggered a political storm that caught Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office (CMO) and law enforcement in its dead centre by broadcasting a contemporaneous electronic recording of a mobile telephone conversation with Superintendent of Police Sujith Das, IPS, in early October. 

The police will likely seek legal advice to determine whether the law construed a participant recording a private conversation without consent as a violation. Moreover, the police investigated whether Mr. Anvar had caused disaffection in the public and disturbed civic order by broadcasting the conversation on conventional and social media.

Later, the government suspended Mr. Sujith Das from service for allegedly lowering the stature of his office by requesting the MLA to stop pursuing a custodial death case in Malappuram district.

 A preliminary departmental enquiry also found Mr Sujith Das prima facie guilty of allegedly disparaging the police hierarchy and Mr. Vijayan’s office, including the latter’s political secretary, P Sasi. 

Mr. Anvar aired the private conversation at a press conference to make his case that the police department under Mr. Vijayan’s watch was corrupt and steeped in criminality. He had also accused the police of ordering illegal wiretaps on politicians, ministers and private individuals under the pretext of monitoring left-extremist activity. 

Mr. Anvar’s statement prompted Kerala Governor Arif Muhammed Khan to seek a report on the MLA’s accusation of wiretapping from the government. 

Later, denouncing Mr Anvar’s statement, Mr Vijayan said the legislator was also under investigation for illegal phone tapping.