VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court has issued notices to secretaries of Union Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Telecommunications, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Central Vigilance Commissioner, CBI Director, Visakhapatnam SP, Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh, Principal Secretary (Home), DGP, TRAI chairman, CEOs of BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone-India and Reliance-JIO companies and Indian Internet Service Providers Association president in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL)  filed by a lawyer seeking a probe into alleged tapping of phones of some High Court judges.  

All the respondents were given four weeks time to file counters. Though the division bench of Chief Justice JK Maheswari and Justice D Ramesh issued notices to the respondents in the case on August 18, it became public only on Friday. 

The PIL was filed by Nimmi Grace, a lawyer from Goapalapatnam in Visakhapatnam district, based on the reports published in a few newspapers about the alleged phone tapping of judges. The petitioner claimed that phones of High Court judges were being taped with encouragement of elders in the government and under the supervision of an IPS officer. Dealing with the PIL on August 20, the High Court had directed that in case the petitioner filed an additional affidavit, the same should be included in the main petition and adjourned the case hearing to September 3.

The respondents  
Secretaries of Union Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Telecommunications, Department of Electronics and IT, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Central Vigilance Commissioner, CBI Director,  Visakhapatnam SP, Chief Secretary of AP, Principal Secretary (Home), DGP, TRAI chairman, CEOs of BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone-India, Reliance-JIO companies, Internet Service Providers Association president