50 State or friendly relations with sovereign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of an offence, it cannot intercept the messages or resort to telephone-tapping unless a public emergency has occurred or the interest of public safety or the existence of the interest of public safety requires. Neither the occurrence of public emergency nor the interest of public safety are secretive conditions or situations. Either of the situations would be apparent to a reasonable person.” However, in the absence of a public emergency and without there being an underlying interest of public safety, Section 69 allows surveillance under an impenetrable shroud, where there is no situation which is “apparent to a reasonable person”. It is submitted that Section 69 of the IT Act and IT Rules of 2009, in general, lack any requirement for transparency and accountability inasmuch as the persons affected by wrongful interception of their private communications are never made aware of this. Without a public emergency / public safety requirement, there is no publicly discernible situation either which would serve to alert citizens that the government may be resorting to surveillance, or to serve as a publicly verifiable justification for surveillance. XXXI. BECAUSE, in any event, the public emergency / public safety requirement may justify the narrow view taken regarding judicial oversight in the Wiretapping judgment (supra), but the complete absence of such a requirement under Section 69 of the IT Act renders judicial oversight virtually indispensable.