Stay on Dharani portal extended till December 8

Hyderabad: A division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy on Thursday heard a batch of seven public interest litigations on Dharani portal and extended the stay on collecting the data for the registration of non-agricultural lands till December 8.

Senior Counsel D Prakash Reddy, appearing for the petitioner I Gopal Sharma, vehemently opposed the State's action in obtaining the personal details of citizens i.e., Aadhaar card, caste, family details etc., for feeding them into the Dharani portal, which has no backing of either a statute or a law.

Further, there is no security to the data, which is being collected, Reddy added. The registrations pertaining to non-agricultural properties in the State were put on hold from September 8, even before the High Court, in its interim orders dated November 3, has directed the State government to restrain from collecting personal details from its citizens. "Now, the State government is telling its people that the registrations in the State have been stopped as the issue is sub judice in the High Court, which is wrong on the part of the State government," Reddy added.

Informing the bench that the mammoth data pertaining to non-agricultural properties, which has been collected and fed into the Dharani portal is at risk, Reddy sought a direction from the court to erase such data.

"There is no backing by law for entries of properties, preparation, maintaining of such crucial data. Who has got the authority to enter such data and what if mistakes crop up during the entry of such data? If mistakes occur intentionally or inadvertently, who will be held responsible for such glaring mistakes?," Reddy wanted to know, adding that if there was a law, then such issues would be addressed and officials concerned would be held accountable.

Replying to Reddy's contentions, Advocate General Banda Shivananda Prasad informed the court that there was no need for a separate law to back the action of the State government to obtain and feed the entire data pertaining to the non-agricultural properties into the Dharani portal. "This programme will ease citizens to deal with their properties and it will put an end to the miscreants, who create third party rights resulting in large scale revenue litigations," he said.

The court adjourned the matter to December 8.