The Telangana High Court on Monday directed IT Grids CEO D. Ashok to respond to the notices issued by Telangana Police in the data theft case.

The court gave the direction while hearing a petition filed by Ashok pleading the court to quash the case registered against the company. Ashok alleged since the firm was providing IT services to Andhra Pradesh's ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the case was registered under a political conspiracy.

The Telangana government counsel while opposing the petition argued that Ashok should submit his statement in response to the notice served on him by the police. After hearing the arguments, the court directed Ashok to reply to the notice and adjourned the hearing to March 20.

Hyderabad police had registered a case against IT Grids on March 2 on a complaint by T. Lokeswara Reddy that sensitive data, including personal information of citizens of Andhra Pradesh, was being processed illegally by the company without the consent of citizens. The data was allegedly used by the company for an app developed by it for TDP cadres.

The case was transferred to the special investigation team (SIT), set up by the Telangana government, on March 6 for a thorough probe. The police had said they were on the lookout for Ashok.

Intensifying the probe, the SIT seized the office of the company located in Madhapur in the information technology hub in Hyderabad.The police, which already seized some hard-disks and electronic gadgets, also took possession of computers and some other material and sealed the office.

The police case, raids on Hyderabad-based company and subsequent developments triggered a row between the Telugu states with Andhra Pradesh alleging that TDP's data was stolen under a conspiracy by Telangana's ruling party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the YSR Congress.

In a tit-for-tat, the Andhra Pradesh government set up a SIT to probe data theft case against Telangana.