New Delhi, May 9
The Centre today informed the Supreme Court that there was no move to hold a parallel inquiry into the surveillance of a woman by the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat.

“There is no proposal to appoint a commission,” Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran told a Bench comprising Justices Ranjana Desai and NV Ramana. Law Minister Kapil Sibal had already made a statement to this effect, the SG said in response to the SC notice on a petition filed by the woman and her father.

The petitioners had sought a court directive restraining the Centre and the Gujarat government from holding any inquiry into the issue as it would jeopardise their privacy, reputation and personal liberty. They said the state had placed her under surveillance at their request as they had perceived a threat to her from some undisclosed quarters.

Gujarat’s senior counsel Tushar Mehta said the state government had ordered an inquiry in the wake of allegations that the state machinery was illegally snooping on the woman. Asked by the court as to whether it was dropping the inquiry in the light of objections by the victim, Mehta said he would seek the government’s advice and went out of the court for the purpose.

However, senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, who appeared for the petitioners, withdrew the petition in the light of the Centre’s assurance and said his clients would challenge the state-level inquiry in the Gujarat High Court.

“The petitioners are very clear that none of their rights was breached” by the surveillance and as such no official probe was required, they had said. They pleaded that they had suffered “collateral damage” in the “crossfire between vested interests” and their fundamental rights were being violated on a daily basis, mainly due to irresponsible news reports, particularly by the so-called social media.