IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD FRIDAY, THE TWENTY FOURTH DAY OF NOVEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND TEN PRESENT HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.4503 OF 2010 Between: Addanki Seetha ..... Petitioner And Addanki Pavan Kumar & another …Respondents The Court made the following: HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.4503 OF 2010 ORDER: The Civil Revision Petition is directed against the order in I.A.No.417 of 2010 in O.P.No.77 of 2004, on the file of the Senior Civil Judge’s Court, Miryalaguda, Nalgonda District, dated 16.08.2010. 2. The application in question was filed by the husband/first respondent herein against the wife/the revision petitioner herein and her alleged paramour/the second respondent herein requesting to send Exs.A-11 to A-30-Cassettes to the State Forensic Science Laboratory for comparison of the voices of the revision petitioner and the second respondent herein. The petition under Section 65 of the Evidence Act read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, was opposed by the revision petitioner herein contending that without any certification from the authorities of the telephones organization to establish that the first respondent herein has a parallel connection at his house and shop to enable such recording of telephone conversations, the request cannot be entertained. The second respondent herein also opposed the application as amounting to infringement of his personal rights. 3. The decision reported in SMT. RAYALA M.BHUVANESWARI VS. NAGAPHANENDER RAYALA[1], was relied on by the revision petitioner and the second respondent herein before the trial Court. 4. The trial Court rendered the impugned order distinguishing the decision cited and noting that the respondents to the application stated in their cross-examination that they have no objection for their voices being compared by the Forensic Science Laboratory. The trial Court felt that as the recording of the conversation about the alleged illegal relationship between the wife/revision petitioner herein and the alleged paramour/second respondent herein is a matter of prime evidence in settling the matter in controversy, it is appropriate to forward Exs.A-11 to A-30-Cassettes in question for voice comparison to the Forensic Science Laboratory. 5. The aggrieved wife is before this Court with this revision contending that the wife specifically denied talking to any other male person over phone and she specifically contended that Exs.A-11 to Ex.A-30-Cassettes were manipulated to file the petition for divorce. The wife also contended that the recording of conversation without her knowledge is illegal and amounts to infringement of the right to privacy and even if the tapes are true, they cannot be admissible in evidence and could not have been forwarded to the Forensic Science Laboratory for comparison. 6. Heard Sri C. Prakash Reddy, learned counsel for the revision petitioner and Sri Palle Nageswara Rao, learned counsel for the first respondent. 7. The point for consideration is whether the disputed tapes could have been forwarded to the Forensic Science Laboratory for comparison of the voices of the wife/revision petitioner herein and the alleged paramour/second respondent herein. 8. Sri Palle Nageswara Rao, learned counsel for the first respondent referred to BURIDI VANAJAKSHMI VS. BURIDI VENKATA SATYA VARAHA PRASAD GANGADHAR RAO AND ANOTHER[2], wherein a learned Judge of this Court permitted examination of the wife and the boy claimed to have been born out of the wedlock by undergoing DNA test to determine the paternity of the boy. The husband’s version in that case is that the child was born out of the adulterous life of the wife. The learned Judge, on a reference to the case law on the aspect, was of the opinion that medical examination by the experts in the field may not only be found to be leading to the truth of the matter but may also lead to the removal of misunderstanding between the parties and perhaps may bring the parties to terms. As the primary duty of the Court is to arrive at the truth and as a Court is not precluded from invoking its inherent jurisdiction to pass such an order so as to secure the ends of justice, the submission of the wife and the child against impugned order passed by the Court below was considered impermissible. 9. However, the issue involved in the said decision does not relate to any shade of illegality vitiating the request for medical examination unlike the recording of the conversation of the wife with others which was considered an illegal act per se in SMT. RAYALA M.BHUVANESWARI’s Case (supra 1) by another learned Judge of this Court. In the decision, which was also cited before the trial Court, the recording of the conversation of the wife with another was without her knowledge or consent and the right of privacy of the wife was found by the Court to have been infringed by the husband and the recording of the conversations was found to be by illegal means. The learned Judge referred to the fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and the right to privacy, though not defined in the Constitution of India, was held to be capable of being claimed, if infringed in a given case, depending on the facts of that case. Telephone conversation was considered to be an important facet of a man’s private life and the learned Judge held the right to privacy to certainly include the telephone conversation in the privacy of one’s home or office and telephone tapping to be infringing Article 21 of the Constitution of India unless it is permitted under the procedure established by law. The learned Judge referred to the decisions of the Apex Court in R.M.MALKANI VS. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA[3], PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES VS. UNION OF INDIA[4] and X VS. HOSPITAL Z[5] to come to a conclusion against the request for such comparison of voices recorded without the knowledge of the wife. The learned Judge had in fact referred to SHARDA VS. DHARMPAL[6] concerning the medical examination of a party on the directions of the Court and distinguished the same as inapplicable to the situation and for the same reasons, the decision reported in BURIDI VANAJAKSHMI’S Case (surpa 2) can have no application to the facts of the present case. The learned Judge also referred to PADALA KANIKI REDDY VS. PADALA SRIDEVI[7] and B. VANDANA KUMARI VS. P. PRAVEEN KUMAR[8] in which also, the question was about the medical examination of a party on the directions of a Court. It will be pertinent to note that in BURIDI VANAJAKSHMI’S Case (surpa 2), the learned Judge in fact was relying on the decisions reported in B. VANDANA KUMARI’s Case (supra 8) and others, which were clearly distinguished by the learned Judge in SMT. RAYALA M.BHUVANESWARI’S Case (supra 1). The learned Judge further held that in J. THIRUPATHAIAH VS. K. SUBBA RAO[9], the question was not considered in the light of Article 21 of the Constitution of India and emphatically laid down that when the act of tapping itself by the husband of the conversation of the wife with others was illegal and amounts to infringement to the right of privacy of the wife, the tapes, even if true, cannot be admitted into evidence and there can be no question of forcing the wife to undergo a voice test and then ask the expert to compare the portion denied by her with her voice. Such tapes are hence inadmissible for any purpose on the principles laid down by the learned Judge. The trial Court, in the impugned order, by referring to the place of recording of the conversation or the persons with whom the conversation had been held by the wife attempted to make a distinction but it cannot be a valid distinction to get over the principles laid down by the learned Judge. Any expression of absence of objection for comparison of the voices during the cross-examination of the wife and the alleged paramour can not confer jurisdiction to order any such reference to an expert, when the tapes are per se inadmissible in evidence. The impugned order has to be, therefore, reversed. 10. Accordingly, the order passed in I.A.No.417 of 2010 in O.P.No.77 of 2004, on the file of the Senior Civil Judge’s Court, Miryalaguda, Nalgonda, dated 16.08.2010, is set aside and the said I.A.No.417 of 2010 is dismissed without costs and it is made clear that any observations made by the trial Court or this Court in this application or revision respectively shall not influence the further proceedings in O.P.No.77 of 2004 in any manner. 11. The Civil Revision Petition is, accordingly, allowed without costs. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 24th November, 2010 KL HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.4503 OF 2010 November 24, 2010. KL [1] AIR 2008 ANDHRA PRADESH, 98 [2] AIR 2010 AP 172 [3] AIR 1973 SC 157 [4] AIR 1997 SC 568 [5] AIR 1999 SC 495 [6] AIR 2003 SC 3450 [7] 2006 (5) ALT 762 [8] AIR 2007 AP 17 [9] AIR 1983 AP 197