"If the High Court staff do not download the Aarogya Setu app, would the Registrar or the Chief Justice be prosecuted?" Santhosh Mathew asked Justice Gopinath Puzhankhara in a Kerala High Court hearing on May 12. Mathew pled for an interim order that stays any prosecution of employers for failures on part of an employee to download the contact-tracing app. While Justice Gopinath did not stay the order, he instructed advocate Jaishankar V. Nair, who appeared on behalf of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), to get instructions from the Home Ministry and MEITY on how the government proposed to implement this requirement. The matter will be heard with two similar cases (which are public interest litigations) on May 18. Mathew was arguing on behalf of Jackson Mathew, Managing Partner at Leetha Industries, who has filed a writ petition challenging the Ministry of Home Affairs directive that holds employers liable for ensuring that all their employees download Aarogya Setu on the grounds that it fails the tests laid down in the Puttaswamy judgement on right to privacy. Justice Gopinath assured the petitioner that "nothing would happen until Monday" in terms of prosecution of employers. 'Employees don't have smartphones, make the move voluntary,' says petitioner "The total population of India is 137 crore. The Aarogya Setu app has been downloaded by, as per the data today [on the app] 9.9 crore," S. Mathew reminded the court. He said that he was currently not arguing the legality of the move…
