The Government of Andhra Pradesh on March 5, 2025 (Wednesday) decided to lodge a complaint before the competent court against the Managing Director, the Chief of News Bureau, the Bureau Chief, the Editor, the Publisher and the journalist of ‘Sakshi’ Telugu daily for allegedly publishing a “defamatory, derogatory and venomous news that is devoid of truth.”
In a G.O. (RT. No. 1) issued to this effect, Bhaskar Katamaneni, Secretary (FAC), Department of Real Time Governance, directed the legal officers to file an appropriate case against the Telugu newspaper owned by the family members of former Chief Minister and YSRCP president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
“The news is libelous, scandalous, untruthful, unfounded, per se defamatory, and derogatory,” the government alleged.
The newspaper had alleged that the government was “willfully deleting votes of the sympathisers of opposition parties and stopping schemes for citizens, committing breach of citizen data, and exposing the entire Aadhaar data to a third-party agency.”
The G.O. said that in exercise of the powers conferred under Section 222(4)(a) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, it was hereby accorded sanction to the concerned Public Prosecutor to make a complaint against ‘Sakshi’ Telugu daily.
“The news article published in ‘Sakshi’ is factually incorrect, and it leads to misconception in the minds of the public. It has failed to present the true facts regarding the incident that happened, despite being aware of the fact,” the government said.
“No scheme has been stopped and votes of sympathisers of opposition parties have not been deleted, and Aadhaar data is not exposed to any third-party, as it is saved in the State Data Centre (SDC) and only user interface is provided by WhatsApp to the government and the citizen,” the government said.
“WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption policy states that all messages, photos, videos, voice messages, documents, status updates, and calls made on the platform are encrypted so that only the sender and the recipient can read or listen to them; meaning WhatsApp itself cannot access the content of these communications, ensuring privacy between the users,” the government said.
It was further alleged that “the newspaper contains several false allegations and statements, and is based on a wholly erroneous understanding and interpretation of the facts relating to the incident, which has caused enormous prejudice against the government and damaged the reputation and integrity in the eyes of public.”
“After considering these facts, it is evident that a deliberate act to tarnish the image of the government by publishing false news articles, which, read as whole, is per se defamatory in nature, and the same has been published without factually ascertaining the truth,” the government alleged.
Published – March 05, 2025 06:17 pm IST