SIT summons BRS leader Harish Rao in alleged phone tapping case
HYDERABAD: As expected, the second Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Monday issued notices to BRS leader and former minister T Harish Rao in the alleged phone tapping case, asking him to appear before the investigation officers on Tuesday at 11 am at the Jubilee Hills police station. He is the first senior BRS leader to be summoned by the SIT in the main case.
The SIT served the notices at Harish Rao’s Hyderabad residence on Monday evening. However, he was in Siddipet at the time.
According to sources, the SIT issued the notices following the deposition of A Sravan Rao, an accused in the phone tapping case and owner of a vernacular news channel.
Harish Rao, now the Siddipet MLA, will first reach Telangana Bhavan, the BRS headquarters, on Tuesday morning, from where he will proceed to the Jubilee Hills police station. The police issued the notices to him under Section 160 of the CrPC.
It may be recalled that the Supreme Court recently dismissed a petition filed against Harish Rao by a realtor from Siddipet, G Chakradhar Goud, who suspected that his phone too was tapped during the BRS regime and expressed doubts over Harish Rao’s role.
Goud had lodged a complaint at Panjagutta police station in December 2024. However, this was not part of the main phone tapping case, which was registered in March 2024. Harish Rao has now been summoned in connection with the main case.
The second SIT was constituted on December 18, 2025, and it was expected to question top BRS leaders, during whose regime the alleged tapping of around 6,000 phones, including those of judges, politicians and journalists, allegedly took place.
The second SIT questioned former Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief and prime accused T Prabhakar Rao for two weeks, after which he was released on bail.
The SIT has also grilled BRS MLC K Naveen Rao, K Nanda Kumar, an accused in the ‘Poachgate’ case in which an attempt was made to poach BRS MLAs, and P Rajasekhar Reddy, former officer on special duty (OSD) to then Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, for their alleged roles in the phone tapping case.
Following their depositions, the SIT has now summoned Harish Rao, who served as Finance and Irrigation Minister during the BRS regime.
A case was registered on March 10, 2024, in connection with the alleged illegal phone tapping after the formation of the Congress government in December 2023.
The government later constituted the first SIT. In December 2025, the Supreme Court directed former SIB chief and prime accused T Prabhakar Rao to surrender before the police and cooperate with the investigation.
In 2024, the police arrested former Special Intelligence Bureau DSP D Praneeth Rao, Additional DCP (CSW), Hyderabad City Police, Thirupathanna, Additional SP Bhupalpally N Bhujanga Rao, former DCP of Hyderabad Police Task Force P Radha Krishna Rao, and A Shravan Rao, a news channel owner, in the phone tapping case.
DIVERSIONARY TACTICS: Reacting to the police notices to Harish Rao, BRS working president K T Rama Rao said it was nothing but diversionary tactics by the Congress government, aimed at shifting public attention, especially because on Monday the coal block allocation scam allegedly involving Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s brother in law, Sujan Reddy, was exposed.
Rama Rao said that the Supreme Court had categorically stated that there was no substance in the phone tapping case and that it was nothing but political witch hunting, and had even quashed the case.
The BRS working president said that from the separate Telangana movement to the present day, Harish Rao had been a leader who had stood by the people in their times of distress.
As Harish Rao had been highlighting the failures of the government over the last two years, the government was resorting to vindictive politics, Rama Rao alleged.