Telangana Phone Tapping Case | Supreme Court Directs Ex-Intelligence Chief Prabhakar Rao To Surrender For Custodial Interrogation

The Supreme Court today directed former Telangana State Intelligence Bureau chief T Prabhakar Rao to surrender before the Jubilee Hills Police Station, Hyderabad by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow for custodial interrogation in the alleged illegal phone tapping phone-tapping case.A bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice R Mahadevan passed this order in light of the State's allegation that no electronic data could be recovered from Rao's iCloud accounts, and that he deleted electronic evidence while enjoying interim protection from arrest granted by the Court.“Their contention is that there is no material which they can gather from your party because the data is not available. It may be somewhere else…We will keep the matter pending. Let there be a custodial interrogation. And you tell us from when to when you will have the custodial interrogation, of course on the condition that no physical harm is done to him, he is a senior citizen, Justice Nagarathna said.The Court passed the order while hearing Rao's anticipatory bail plea. The Court however, clarified that it has not dismissed the anticipatory bail, but kept it pending.“We are not dismissing it. We are just saying that let there be an effective investigation, interrogation whatever minus any physical torture or hardship. We are just trying to balance the interest of the in petitioner and at the same time the investigation”, Justice Nagarathna added.The State alleged that Rao, who is accused of intercepting phones of politicians, high court judges and others to aid the previous BRS government, had not complied with the Court's earlier direction to reset all his iCloud passwords. The Court in October had ordered him to reset and share the passwords with the police in the presence of forensic experts after the State claimed that he had formatted his devices and destroyed evidence while under interim protection from arrest.Rao has maintained that deletion of data took place under official protocol on the basis of orders of a Review Committee due to the sensitivity of the information.However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for th State, contended that the data was destroyed prematurely, and hard disks were destroyed and thrown in a river.The State yesterday alleged the bench that despite the Court's order, Rao had reset passwords for only two out of five iCloud accounts. Today, Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Rao, said that one account could not be reset because the associated US mobile number was deactivated and could not be reactivated.The bench repeatedly asked about missing electronic data, the hard drives removed and replaced, and whether any written permission existed for such actions. The Court also asked where the data was and why no material had been recovered despite the password resets.Justice Mahadevan questioned the disappearance of large amounts of data. He said, “You removed almost 26 hard drives. When you were directed to give the password you said you forgot everything. Later you were able to remember everything. When they accessed it nothing was available. Ten years of data collected, nothing was available. Is it not a crime?”Kumar responded that the data was deleted on the order of the Review Committee. Justice Mahadevan asked him to show an order permitting the destruction of the hard disk, stating that the Rules only permitted removal of data, not destruction. Kumar requested that the minutes of the Review Committee meeting dated December 2, 2023 may be produced, and it would show support his position that data was deleted on the order of the Review Committee.The State informed the Court that no data was found on Rao's iCloud accounts and that Apple had confirmed activity on those accounts before he appeared for investigation, and it had to be investigated whether the data was deleted. Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra for the state submitted that some email addresses supplied by also Rao did not open. Justice Nagarathna noted the state's contention that no material was available from Rao and that the data may be elsewhere. Kumar responded that Rao had complied with the direction to reset and share the passwords, and that the State must show some basis to allege that he was still withholding information.The Court then indicated that custodial interrogation was now necessary to enable an effective investigation. It emphasised that Rao must not be subjected to physical harm because of his age and status as a retired officer. Kumar said he had no objection to interrogation and suggested the possibility of house arrest. However, the Solicitor General opposed that suggestion and argued that Rao had held a key position in the police and had evaded and destroyed evidence.The Court then ordered Rao to surrender by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow before the investigation officer at Jubilee Hills Police Station, Hyderabad, for further investigation. Justice Nagarathna initially dictated that the state is restrained from causing him any physical harm....

Telangana Phone Tapping Case | Supreme Court Directs Ex-Intelligence Chief Prabhakar Rao To Surrender For Custodial Interrogation

Amisha Shrivastava

The State submitted that Rao has not given access to his devices despite the earlier direction.

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