Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan also extended interim protection from coercive action to Rao and directed him to appear before the investigating officer and cooperate in the investigation.
During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that the investigation was not progressing due to Rao’s “non-cooperation” and alleged that he had formatted electronic devices and destroyed crucial evidence under a court protective order.
“He was intercepting the phones of not only politicians but also important people. After filing the anticipatory bail plea, he formatted the device. It is as good as a new device. This is not my guess. This is what the Central Forensic Science Laboratory says.”
“It is our case that he has backup because he has purchased 15 hard disks. But he says he has nothing. He is not cooperating because of the protective umbrella of interim protection of this court,” Mehta told the court.
Senior advocate DS Naidu, appearing for Rao, strongly refuted the allegations and said that Rao is fully cooperating in the investigation.
Naidu argued that the investigation was politically motivated and alleged that “outsiders, politicians, MPs and MLAs” were allowed to interrogate him during the inquiry.
Justice Nagarathna then remarked, “This cannot be a ‘tamasha’. How can MPs and MLAs come and inquire? They cannot be spectators or part of the investigation.” Mehat denied the allegation.
The hearing of the case has been fixed on November 18.
The top court on May 29 granted interim protection from penal action to Rao and directed him to give an undertaking that he would return to India within three days of receiving his passport.
Rao has moved the top court challenging an order of the Telangana High Court which had rejected his plea seeking anticipatory bail.
On May 22, a Hyderabad court issued a proclamation order against Rao in the phone tapping case.
According to the order, if Rao does not appear before the court by June 20, he can be declared a “proclaimed offender”.
If a person is declared a fugitive, the court can order attachment of the property of the accused.
A suspended DSP of the SIB was among the four police officers arrested by the Hyderabad Police since March 2024 on charges of erasing intelligence from various electronic gadgets as well as alleged phone tapping during the previous BRS regime. Later he was granted bail.
The police had said the accused were part of an alleged conspiracy in which they “misused” the resources of the SIB for political purposes by keeping citizens from different walks of life under surveillance.
The police had earlier said that the men, who have been accused along with others in the case, had allegedly developed profiles of several people unauthorized and were also accused of secretly and illegally monitoring them in the SIB and using them in a partisan manner to favor a political party at the behest of certain persons and conspiring to destroy records to make evidence of their crimes disappear.