The Telangana High Court on Thursday directed Margadarsi Financiers to provide details of payments to investors in a pen drive given to Undavalli Arun Kumar, who had earlier moved the Supreme Court seeking investor data.
A bench of Justices Sujoy Paul and Namavarapu Rajeswhar Rao passed the order after hearing the arguments of lawyers Margadarsi Financiers and Arun Kumar. The bench said that the petitioners (Margadarsi Financiers and others) should provide the pen drive to Arun Kumar before December 15.
The HC made it clear that Mr. Arun Kumar shall not use these materials for any other purpose but only in this case without the permission of the court. The bench directed the Registry to prepare identical paper books with similar page numbers for the court and all parties including Mr. Arun Kumar.
The bench said the cost of preparing the hard copy should be borne by the petitioners and gave the RBI four weeks to respond to certain fresh documents filed by the petitioners after filing their counter-affidavits in the matter. Advocates for the Andhra Pradesh government and Telangana prosecutors were given four weeks to file counter-affidavits.
In a special leave petition (criminal) filed by Mr. Arun Kumar, the Supreme Court directed Margadarsi Financiers and others to furnish all details related to payments to investors. As required, they submitted physical copies of more than 56,000 pages. The documents were handed over to Mr. Arun Kumar who requested the Supreme Court to direct the opposite party to furnish the details in the form of soft copies through a pen drive to assist the court and analyze the details with the help of technology.
Lawyers for Margadarsi Financiers disputed this and said that the above documents fell within the definition of “information” under Section 2 (o) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and therefore such details could not be provided. He also argued that Mr Arun Kumar was not a victim in the matter and had limited rights to “assist” the court.
However, the bench held that the documents sought by Mr Arun Kumar had already been submitted to the Supreme Court. “…This is not a case of new information or revelations at all. Therefore, the question of providing new data does not arise,” it noted.
Published – November 8, 2024 03:03 AM (IST)
