Telangana high court seeks state’s response in morphed CM images case

Hyderabad: Telangana high court on Monday issued notices to the state govt and a Congress party worker in a petition filed by a Mahabubnagar-based businessman in a case involving morphed images of CM A Revanth Reddy.He was seeking to quash a criminal case registered against him for allegedly circulating morphed and defamatory images of the CM on social media. The case was registered against Kavali Venkatesh in Jan at Maddur police station in Narayanpet district, based on a complaint lodged by Goolla Narasimha, a Congress worker from Narayanpet. Hearing the matter, a bench of Justice J Sreenivas Rao issued notices to the respondents and adjourned the case to Feb 11 for further hearing. During the hearing, counsel for Venkatesh argued that the petitioner was innocent and had no connection with the alleged offence. Responding to the submissions, the judge referred to recent observations of the Supreme Court in a similar case and noted that India is a secular country and that victims also have a fundamental right to oppose such acts, including the circulation of morphed images. ‘Falsely implicated'The petitioner's counsel, however, maintained that Venkatesh was a law-abiding citizen and had been falsely implicated on the basis of a false complaint. He alleged that the police were not adhering to the provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and were also violating the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar versus state of Bihar. The counsel further claimed that the police had been frequently visiting the petitioner's house and threatening to arrest him, despite the absence of material linking him to the case.