While highlighting the need to regulate the private detectives, mention the provisions of proposed Private Detective Agencies (Regulation) Bill.
Economic growth and development have led to the establishment of a large number of private detective agencies.Their services are used by business establishments for gathering information and intelligence, parents use them to spy on their children, spouses use them to keep tabs on their partners, companies use them for background checks on employees .
The need to regulate them arises because:
a)The scale of their work makes them business enterprises and sensitive nature of their work needs to be regulated as per government.
b)The lack of any formal regulation is giving some detective agencies the confidence to indulge in numerous illegal activities like extracting call records.
c) There are agencies that are resorting to unethical methods that are bordering on criminal activity and violating the privacy of individuals.
d)Number of bogus enterprises are coming up which are fooling the innocent clients.
The Private Detective Agencies (Regulation) Bill, 2007 has following provisions :
a)It will allow Private detective agencies to work only in the non-government sector and keep strictly off any investigation into bona fide activities or affairs of the state, particularly the work of state agencies such as IB, R&AW or CBI.
b) Every private detective agency would be granted license by regulation boards established at the central and state level and only then it can operate.
c)A private detective agency may employ a person as an agent if he is an Indian citizen, of 21 years of age or above, and satisfies certain specified requirements about his antecedents, training and physical fitness.
d) Those found violating a person’s right to privacy and freedom would be punished with fine and imprisonment.
The bill which had been introduced a decade back needs to be made in to act. A fast growing sector needs to be regulated to protect people’s right and for orderly growth of sector.
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