HYDERABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to former Telangana State Intelligence Bureau chief T Prabhakar Rao in the alleged phone-tapping case.
A bench comprising Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice R Mahadevan granted relief after the state informed the court that the investigation was nearly complete and Rao had cooperated with the probe. The bench made the interim protection from arrest previously granted to Rao absolute while keeping the legal question on the maintainability of his anticipatory bail plea open.
Appearing for Telangana, senior advocate Sidharth Luthra submitted that the interim protection could be confirmed as the investigation had almost concluded. He also told the court that an additional chargesheet against Rao would be filed soon.
Rao has been accused of intercepting the phones of politicians, High Court judges, and others to benefit the former BRS government. Earlier, the former SIB chief, as per the directions of the apex court, had appeared before the investigating officer at the Jubilee Hills police station where he was questioned over a period of two weeks.
The state government alleged that Rao destroyed electronic evidence, including hard disks and iCloud data, while under interim protection. However, Rao claimed the deletion followed official protocol based on a Review Committee’s directions due to the sensitive nature of the information.