The Delhi High Court raised privacy concerns over Delhi Police’s request to access WhatsApp contacts of a hoax bomb threat accused. It questioned indiscriminate data disclosure, warning such actions could unjustifiably intrude upon individuals’ privacy rights and personal information.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court expressed concern that allowing the Delhi Police’s request for disclosure of WhatsApp contact information saved by a person accused of issuing hoax bomb threats to the Union Ministry of Petroleum in June 2025 could impinge on the right to privacy.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani has sought a response from WhatsApp in the matter.
The judge voiced reservations about the police plea, particularly questioning whether the list of contacts saved by the suspect on WhatsApp should be disclosed. The court observed that the suspect might have saved numbers of individuals unaware that their contact was stored potentially including government officials whom the suspect never actually contacted.
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The Court queried whether such individuals should be subjected to unwarranted investigation.
The Court stated,
“Anybody can pick up the directory of a government department and record some numbers in WhatsApp. Then you will say, ‘oh he is in touch with so and so.’ That means nothing. You will then ask for details of that person. You will say ‘now I need that data.’ You will start looking into someone else’s number. Then no privacy will remain,”
The bench further noted that the accused might habitually save numbers of judges, ministers or senior officials who have no relation to him or the alleged offense.
Justice Bhambhani said,
“Suppose the person under investigation has saved a police officer’s, lawyer’s number without connection, what will you do about that? Will you take them under realm of suspicion? Does the person whose number is stored, does he even know? You don’t know if the person just likes to save numbers of ministers, judges, officials, what will you do then? Then there is no end to this. For WhatsApp, it is a policy matter also,”
The Police’s application seeks asymmetrical WhatsApp data (encrypted data) linked to the number alleged to have been used to make the hoax bomb threats. A Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) had earlier declined to direct disclosure of this data, finding that it could infringe third-party privacy. After a revision petition against the CJM’s order was dismissed, the Delhi Police approached the High Court.
At the hearing, the State’s Additional Standing Counsel (ASC) argued the asymmetrical data is essential to determine whether the accused communicated with third parties, and to verify if calls were routed to another country or whether any attempt was made to extract sensitive information from the Ministry.
He submitted,
“The threat call was received from this number. To verify and check if calls were made to another country or if to the Ministry to get secret information, for that enquiry we require the data. We have sought for information on what all contacts were saved on this number’s Whatsapp application. There is a connection with Pakistan, there is a national threat,”
The ASC stated the accused had saved fourteen contacts on WhatsApp and is alleged to have impersonated an official of the Ministry of Home Affairs and attempted to elicit sensitive information from Drone Federation India. Addressing the court’s privacy concerns, the ASC assured that individuals who are not suspects would not be subjected to investigation.
The matter is scheduled for further hearing on May 26.
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