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Synopsis

The Telangana High Court has initiated suo motu proceedings into allegations of illegal phone tapping conducted during the tenure of the Bharat Rashtra Smithi (BRS) Government and issued notices on Tuesday directing the Union and state governments to submit their responses within three weeks.

A special Bench, comprising the Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice T. Vinod Kumar, have taken up the matter after a report was published in the Deccan Chronicle, which exposed that the phone tapping not only targeted rival politicians but also included notable High Court judges, such as Justice Sarath Khaja.

The court, expressing grave concern over the breach of privacy, said “It's a matter of great concern. As an institution, we are all troubled by it. This is not just a case of simple phone tapping; it infringes upon the Right to Privacy and is a matter of National Security.”

The controversy surfaced in December 2023, following the Congress party's victory in the Rajya Sabha elections and their subsequent rise to power in Telangana. The primary accused, former Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) Chief T Prabhakar Rao, is alleged to have orchestrated the privacy breaches. According to confession statements from co-accused Bhujanga Rao and other officers, Rao monitored and tapped the phones of High Court judges.

In early March this year, former SIB official Dugyala Praneeth Rao was also arrested on charges of illegal surveillance, criminal conspiracy, and destruction of evidence, among other serious offenses. The arrest followed a complaint filed by D Ramesh, Additional Superintendent of Police, SIB, accusing Praneeth Rao of unlawfully accessing protected computer systems, tampering with digital documents, and misusing public resources. Media reports indicated that Praneeth Rao developed profiles of "unknown persons" for monitoring purposes and tapped the phones of opposition leaders and journalists during the BRS government's tenure.

Recognizing the gravity of the issue, the High Court PIL committee presented the matter to Chief Justice Aradhe, who subsequently directed the HC registry to register it as a suo motu writ petition.

Following the Chief Justice's directions, the HC registry included several key officials as respondents to the writ petition. These officials include the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, the Telangana Chief Secretary, the Director General of Police, the Principal Secretary of the Home Department, the Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence), and the Hyderabad Commissioner of Police.

The court is also examining other aspects of the report, which suggest widespread phone tapping based on the confessional statements of the arrested police officers. These statements indicate that the phones of every politician who criticised then-minister and BRS working president KT Rama Rao in connection with the TSPSC question paper leak scam, as well as those of judges, were tapped. The operation was allegedly orchestrated under the instructions of then SIB Chief T Prabhakar Rao and monitored by officers including Bhujanga Rao, Mekala Tirupathanna, D Praneeth Rao, and former Task Force DCP G Radha Krishan Rao.

 

SUOMOTUWP No.2 of 2024