Andhra Pradesh High Court serves notices in phone tapping petition

Nelapadu (Amaravati): The Andhra Pradesh High Court served show cause notice to various respondents before admission of a writ petition filed by Nakka Nammi Grace, who contended that the phones of some judges of the High Court and advocates, who are appearing to defend the cases against the state government, are placed under surveillance in contravention to the Telegraph Act.

The petition also alleged that such surveillance was against the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in the case of People's Union for Civil Liberties vs. Union of India.

The division bench of the High Court heard the arguments of the counsel for the petitioner, Jada Sravan Kumar, Assistant Solicitor General of India N Harinath, additional Advocate General Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy, and special government pleader C Sumon before directing to serve notices to the director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the SP of CBI at Visakhapatnam, the CEO of Jio-Reliance Jio, Mumbai, the CEO of Airtel, Hyderabad, the CEO of BSNL, New Delhi, the chairman of Vodafone-Idea, Mumbai and to the president of Internet Service Providers Association of India, New Delhi, returnable in four weeks to show cause as to why this writ petition should not be admitted in the circumstances stated in the petition and the affidavit.