Andhra Pradesh chief electoral officer, secretary get HC notice in IT Grids case

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the chief electoral officer of Andhra Pradesh, the secretary of the Andhra Pradesh state general administrative department, the Unique Identification Authority of India represented by its chief executive officer, New Delhi, and the registrar, Enrolling Agency, Andhra Pradesh under the Aadhaar Act.

Justice Dr Shameem Akther was dealing with the two criminal petitions filed by director, IT Grids, D. Ashok, seeking a stay on both the FIRs registered against him in Madhapur and Sanjeev Reddy Nagar police stations by the Telangana police on the complaints of Mr Lokeshwar Reddy and Mr Dasaratharami Reddy on the allegations of the data breach.

Senior counsel appearing for Mr Ashok, Siddharth Luthra, pressed for impleading the above parties as respondents and issuing notices on the ground that the above parties are the custodians of the crucial important personal data and should be heard.

Mr Pratap Reddy, the public prosecutor of TS, made a point before the court that the Electoral officer and UIDAI’s CEO need to be parties in this case and urged for adjudication on the maintainability of the criminal petitions before going to implead.

The Judge made it clear that the issue of maintainability of both the criminal petitions will be kept open. The counsel for the complainant Mr Lokesheswar Reddy, Data Analyst, IT Grids, opposed the impleading of parties and the issuance of notices stating that it was an attempt of the accused to scuttle and sidetrack the investigation.

The Judge issued notices and adjourned the two criminal petitions to April 22.