Phone-tapping case: SC grants interim protection from coercive action to ex-SIB chief in Telangana

New Delhi, May 29 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Thursday granted interim protection from coercive action to former Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief in Telangana T Prabhakar Rao, an accused in the phone-tapping case.

A bench comprising Justices B V Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma directed Rao, who is believed to be in the United States, to appear before the investigating officer and said his passport be made available to him.

"Pending consideration of this special leave petition, we direct the petitioner to appear before the concerned investigating authority/officer. For that purpose, the passport/travel document(s) for travel only to India shall be made available to the petitioner by the chief passport officer/competent authority so that he could appear before the concerned investigating authority/officer within a period of three days on receipt of the passport/travel document(s) to India.

"Till the next date of hearing, no coercive steps shall be taken as against the petitioner," the bench said.

The court also directed the investigating officer to submit a status report before the next date of hearing on August 5.

"The petitioner shall also file an affidavit of undertaking within a week before this court that within three days from the date of receipt of the passport/travel document(s) only to India, he would return to India and appear before the concerned investigating authority/officer.

"It is needless to observe that the concerned investigating authority/officer shall investigate into the offences alleged against the petitioner herein in accordance with law. The petitioner shall, however, cooperate with the investigation," the bench said.

Rao, the key accused in the phone-tapping case, is suspected to be in the US. A Red Corner Notice was issued against him and his passport was revoked, a police official said earlier.

The top court also directed Rao to give an undertaking that he would return to India within three days of the receipt of his passport.

During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and senior advocate Sidharth Luthra vehemently opposed Rao's plea for anticipatory bail.

Rao has moved the top court challenging an order of the Telangana High Court, which dismissed his anticipatory bail plea.

On May 22, a Hyderabad court issued a proclamation order against Rao in the phone-tapping case.

According to the order, Rao may be declared a "proclaimed offender" if he does not appear before the court by June 20.

If a person is declared a proclaimed offender, the court can order the attachment of his properties.

A suspended DSP of the SIB was among the four police officials arrested by the Hyderabad Police since March 2024 for allegedly erasing intelligence information from various electronic gadgets as well as for phone-tapping during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime in Telangana. They were subsequently granted bail.

The accused are part of a "conspiracy", in which they allegedly misused the SIB's resources for political purposes by putting citizens from different walks of life under surveillance, police had said earlier.

Those named as accused in the case, along with others, had allegedly developed profiles of several people in an unauthorised manner and were accused of monitoring them clandestinely and illegally in the SIB and using them in a partisan manner to favour a political party at the behest of some people. They were also involved in a conspiracy to destroy records to cause disappearance of evidence of their crime, police had said. PTI PKS RC