1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY APPELLATE SIDE CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO.3669 OF 2009 Vodafone Essar Limited : Applicants V/s. The State of Maharashtra & Anr. : Respondents .... Mr.Shirish Gupte, Senior Advocate, with Mr.Punit B. Anand for the applicants. Mr.A.S.Shitole, Addl. Public Prosecutor for the State. Ms A.T. Jhaveri (appointed) for respondent no.2. .... CORAM : S.C.DHARMADHIKARI,J. DATE : JANUARY 11, 2010. P.C.: In this case, this Court, after hearing both the sides, on 9.9.2009 had passed an order that a responsible officer will be deputed to Goregaon Police Station to explain the method of downloading caller tunes and the respondent no.2-complainant’s husband will also remain present at the Goregaon Police Station. 2. Mr.Gupte, the learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the 2 applicants, on instructions, makes a statement that the caller tune in question has been deleted at the request of the 2nd respondent and is no longer available in her mobile phone. Further, it is stated on instructions that such caller tunes can be accessed by the mobile phone subscribers only after they dial a particular number or else there is nothing like automatic insertion or placing the caller tune in a mobile phone. A caller tune can be inserted only on request and if the subscriber accesses a particular number meant for that facility. In this case, it is pointed out that the 2nd respondent's husband was a subscriber of the mobile phone. He had allowed this phone to be used by his wife for a temporary period. During such usage by the wife, the objectionable caller tune was heard. After tendering an apology to the Court and to the complainant, it is stated that this caller tune is discontinued and now the mobile phone subscriber will no longer hear it or any person calling her/her husband will not have to hear such a tune. In these peculiar facts, the request is to quash the criminal proceedings/F.I.R. 3. To my mind, apart from this issue, there are larger issues in this case. On several occasions, it has been noticed that a subscriber’s telephone is easily available to any service provider, including Call Centres, who are rendering varied services, including offering for sale/hire of goods and other products on behalf of companies and firms 3 who are manufacturers and traders. Very often than not, these persons call up the subscriber and the subscriber is surprised and shocked to know as to how his mobile phone number became available to a stranger/service provider/trader/manufacturer. It appears that unlike a Telephone Directory maintained in earlier times, now the entire subscriber details together with phone numbers are put as a data-base on a web-site by every service provider/mobile telephone company and that is how the afore-mentioned persons have access to all telephone numbers. It has presented innumerable difficulties, including problems of security. Sometimes, mobile numbers of high dignitaries, including persons holding sensitive and important positions/constitutional functionaries are easily available and apart from facing embarrassing situations, there is a serious apprehension after unknown persons access the mobile number easily. Apart from invasion of privacy, there are several other vital issues, including secrecy and security violations. 4. Mr.Gupte, learned senior counsel, assures the Court that the concerned applicants will look into these issues and, as far as their subscribers are concerned, they would evolve some procedure by which free access to mobile numbers of their subscribers would not be permitted and the numbers, including relevant details, would be withheld on request and removed from the common data-base. 4 5. In the result, this Criminal Application is disposed of. All proceedings pursuant to the complaint of the respondent no.2 shall stand quashed. However, this order does not prevent the 2nd respondent from initiating proceedings for claiming damages or compensation and pleas on behalf of both the sides are kept open. (S.C. DHARMADHIKARI, J.)