High Court orders investigation into tapping of Judges’ phones

A few days ago, news broke out that the government of Andhra Pradesh was tapping the phones of High Court Judges, and this has led to a great political controversy in the state. The government issued a statement that it has not tapped any phones, and that the media house spreading false rumors should be punished.

However, despite the statement that the government gave out, a person filed a petition in the High Court, requesting for an in-detail investigation into the matter. Today, the HC heard the arguments of both the petitioner and the government as well.

Upon hearing both the arguments, the HC issued notices to the telecom companies linked to this case, and has also asked the government to file a counter affidavit to the ongoing case.

It has been said that an IPS officer had been hired by the government to keep a track of the movement of all the Judges, and separate shadow selves were also assigned to each Judge, to track their movements.

The court had asked for the name of the IPS officer, but the government advocate said that he would include the name of the officer in the affidavit that he was asked to submit. Furthermore, the lawyer of the petitioner questioned the government advocate why he was against a public probe into the matter, when the advocate was claiming that the government is innocent.

The petitioner had been requesting for a thorough investigation into the issue from the very first day, with the help of technical experts and the CBI. The High Court was satisfied with the arguments for a probe, and has scheduled the next hearing for Thursday.

On the other hand, the High Court rejected the government advocate’s request to send out notices to the media house that initially published the story of this tracking.