Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court adjourned the petitions filed by Mr D. Ashok, director of IT Grids, to next Wednesday for further hearing.
Justice Shameem Akther on Wednesday was dealing with the two petitions by Mr Ashok urging the court to quash the FIRs filed by the Telangana Police or transfer the cases which were lodged against him to the appropriate authority of AP state, as the allegations were data breach of AP voters.
Mr Mahesh Jethmalani, senior counsel from Supreme Court, representing the Telangana Police submitted that the Telangana Police had jurisdiction to investigate the data breach case on the ground that the office of M/s IT Grids was located in Hyderabad. He said that the director, who was an accused in the case, was also a resident of Hyderabad.
Further, he submitted that the vital, personal and sensitive data which the IT Grids company possessed, pertained to voters residing in Rangareddy district, Hyderabad, Kadapa apart from Vishakapatnam. The offence of sensitive data theft occurred in Hyderabad and the Telangana Police had jurisdiction to investigate it. He said that the Telangana police were called as it would be failure to do mandatory duty, if they did not investigate the matter.
Mahesh Jethmalani said that the main contention of the director of IT Grids that the Telangana Police had no jurisdiction would take a back seat here. The fulcrum plea of the petitioner was unsustainable because the director of IT Grids, who was the mastermind behind the data theft was still on the run, and fearing arrest. By citing various Supreme Court judgments, he submitted that courts could not quash FIRs on mere territorial jurisdiction issue.
Mr Siddharth Luthra, senior counsel for Ashok, submitted that Telangana police had no jurisdiction to lodge the case and investigate as the data was the AP state’s.
