Data on 16 thousand citizens in the hands of a private company, the police told the HC

Transaction Analysts India Private Limited, against which a Hyderabad police detective has issued a first information report, is “illegally withholding sensitive data relating to nearly 16 million citizens, causing serious damage to public interest and seriously affecting the smooth functioning of essential government digital services,” the police said in a counter-affidavit filed in the Telangana High Court.

Deputy Commissioner of Police DD A. Ram Reddy, who filed an affidavit in a criminal petition filed by the company and three others to quash the FIR and stay all further proceedings, including the arrest of the accused, said such deliberate withholding of key government data amounted to fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of public administration. According to the ACP, an FIR was issued against TAPL under Sections 316 (2), 318 (4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Sections 66-C, 70 and 72 and 43 read with 66 of the Information Technology Act on the basis of a complaint filed by the office of the Commissioner, Electronic Services Delivery (ESD)/Meeseva.

ACP insisted that Meesevy’s services engaged TAPL in 2017 to develop and maintain the state-owned “T-Wallet” platform. Under the contract, the company was required to hand over full control of the data, source code, systems, credentials and related infrastructure to the government after the contract expired on May 31, 2025. Despite repeated communications, it failed to do so after that date. ACP alleged that TAPL was illegally storing and misusing government-owned data, hindering the transition process to the newly appointed agency.

While TAPL was named as the first accused in the FIR, Katuri Srinivas Rao, managing director of the company, M. Srinivasulu, head of projects and P. Kiran Kumar, project manager, were named as the second, third and fourth accused. The third accused was arrested on April 25. The ACP said in an affidavit that since the investigation is in nascent stage, the accused needs to be investigated thoroughly. He said that the accused company can misuse the data of 16 thousand citizens/users for illegal purposes and therefore the criminal petition filed by the company and the other three accused should be dismissed.

Published – 26 May 2026 21:39 IST