Aryan Grover
A division bench of the Telangana High Court, comprising Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen, has granted an additional two weeks to the State Director General of Police for filing a status report on the action taken against instant loan applications and their owners.
So far, the police have blocked 45 such loan lending applications and conducted various raids on call centres and other places, arrested three accused, including a Chinese woman.
The bench had earlier dealt with a PIL filed by advocate S Kalyan Dileep, who sought direction to the State and Central governments to impose a ban on instant loan applications, who allegedly harass borrowers and charge an exorbitant amount of
interest rates, ranging from 150 to 450 percent on a weekly and fortnightly basis. The Public Interest Litigation also sought the closure of all kinds of illegal call centre operations in Telangana.
The call centres have employed various unethical methods to exact payment from their customers, such as blackmailing them with their photos and contact list which they procure by accessing phone galleries, inconsistent with the end-to-end encryption rule. These acts violate Section 69-A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and have driven many youngsters to suicide. Therefore, the petitioner has sought a ban on these applications.
The bench decided to take immediate action and had thus directed the Director General of Police, as well as the police commissioners of Hyderabad, Cyberabad, and Rachakonda to file individual affidavits relating to the areas in their jurisdiction. It had also issued a notice to the respondents- Secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs, State Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary to Home, and DGP- to file a counter affidavit within four weeks.
