Private detectives: Delhi HC seeks Centre’s views in plea to regulate their work, domain

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the Central Government’s response in a plea seeking to frame guidelines to regulate the work and domain of private detectives.

Justice Rekha Palli was hearing the plea of a woman who claimed that her personal details, intimate photographs were acquired by a private detective by deceit, who then remitted it to a foreign national. The said foreign national was allegedly using the aforementioned information in a court of law in the USA.

Advocate Rajesh Kumar, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that despite a number of detective agencies operating in the country, there are no guidelines to regulate their activities and, consequently, these agencies are violating the privacy of Indian citizens with impunity.

Kumar further submitted that though a bill in this regard was tabled in the Rajya Sabha as far back as 2007 till date no guidelines have been framed by the respondents to regulate the activities of these detective agencies.

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The petition filed by the woman has further sought:

1. restraining order against the KSSHIPRA INTELLIGENT PRIVATE LIMITED (Private Detective Company), not to share/transfer/ circulate in public domain as well as pass on to a foreign national, the chats/ visuals/Pictorials etc of the Petitioner lady procured illegally.
2. further restraining any person related to KSSHIPRA INTELLIGENT PRIVATE LIMITED, from testifying the veracity of the details of the personal intimate details of the Petitioner procured illegally in the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, Virginia, USA in case No-CL-2011/0009275 filed by Namrata Sinha, US citizen.
3. initiate appropriate legal action against KSSHIPRA INTELLIGENT PRIVATE LIMITED for infringing the fundamental right of the petitioner, without having any authority of any nature and selling the same to a foreign national.
4. to set up a mechanism to prevent transmission of personal details of Indian citizens procured illegally to foreign country and used by foreign nationals in foreign court of law taking advantage of the vacuum of codified law.

The matter has been listed for further hearing on January 10, 2021.

Read the order here;