The Kerala High Court (HC) on February 24 directed the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) to stop sending WhatsApp messages to state employees until the court hears the case on February 27, 2026. Justice Benchu Kurian Thomas directed the Kerala government to respond to a petition filed against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan regarding WhatsApp promotional messages sent to state employees.
The petition, filed by Malappuram-based Associate Professor Rasheed Ahammed and Thiruvananthapuram-based government employee Anil Kumar, alleges that the CMO accessed private data from the state database used to credit salaries and benefits. The petition names CM Pinarayi Vijayan, the Finance Department, and the IT Department.
What is Kerala CMO’s WhatsApp Message?
A screenshot shows a WhatsApp message received by a Kerala state employee from the Chief Minister’s Office Kerala, a business account reportedly created in January 2026. According to the petition filed in the Kerala High Court, the CMO has allegedly been using data from the Service and Payroll Administrative Repository for Kerala (SPARK) database.
Source: Muhammed Yaseen, Kerala Resident.
The message highlights increases in Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief, assuring citizens that the government will continue to protect their welfare and rights.
What is SPARK Database?.
SPARK is a 19-year-old e-governance platform that handles HR operations, including salary disbursements for around five lakh state employees.
“SPARK has been implemented in all government establishments covering 39 government departments, under which 122 field departments and over 30,000 offices are spread across the State,” the petition states.
The petition notes that Kerala’s Assembly elections are scheduled for April 2026 and alleges that the “bulk message campaign by the CMO is an election campaign.”
It further states that the Department of Electronics & Information Technology issued a government order on February 11, 2026, asking agencies to “provide quality manpower for carrying out the e-governance and digital transformation activities undertaken by various departments of the Government.” For this project, the government appointed the Kerala State IT Mission as the nodal agency.
“This is nothing but an election campaign, resulting in the intrusion into the right to privacy of the citizens by the State, without their consent, by accessing the private data of the Government employees and others who have given for crediting their monthly salary in the Service Pay Roll Administrative Repository for Kerala (SPARK),” the petition reads.
Violation of the DPDP Act and the Right to Privacy
The petition argues that a personal contact number is directly linked to a person’s identity and can reveal sensitive information, including health records, bank account details, digital…
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