KOCHI: The Kerala High Court has directed the Crime Branch not to arrest Thomas Joseph, who was in charge of the Booth Management System by Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee during the 2021 Assembly elections, in connection with a case registered for the leaking of voters list prepared by the State Election Commission ahead of the elections till March 25. The data of 2.67 crore voters were leaked as per the complaint submitted by the chief electoral officer.
The court issued the order on the anticipatory bail plea filed by Thomas Joseph of Kozhikode in the case. Senior Advocate M Ramesh Chander, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the petitioner received a notice from the Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch Thiruvananthapuram and he was asked to appear on February 24 to record a statement as a part of the investigation.
The prosecution has got no case that the petitioner was involved in the case, the petitioner said adding that he is an internationally renowned academician, political, and business strategist and is innocent of the allegations leveled in the complaint. The petitioner has no criminal antecedents. The petitioner also facing arrest in a non-bailable offence, hence he filed the anticipatory bail plea.
The petition stated that during the last Kerala assembly election then opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala had brought out a list of 4.3 lakh voters whose names were found to have entered twice or multiple times in the list.
Public interest litigation was also filed by Chennithala against the SEC and the high court was directed to take all the possible steps, to prevent double voting or impersonated voting. Later the electoral officer filed a complaint before the crime branch alleging that electoral roll data was illegally removed from a laptop in the CEO's office in Thiruvananthapuram.
The Crime Branch registered the FIR on July 2, 2021, under section 406 (criminal breach of trust), 408 (Criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant), 379 (theft), 381 (theft by clerk or servant), 120 B (Criminal Conspiracy) of IPC and 66, 66(b),66(c) of Information Technology Act, 2000.
The petitioner submitted that he did not know about the crime. The court will hear the case on February 25.