Phone-tapping case: Supreme Court extends ex-Telangana SIB chief's police custody till December 25

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday extended till December 25 the police custody of former Telangana Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief T Prabhakar Rao who is an accused in the phone-tapping case.

A bench comprising justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said Rao would be released after interrogation on December 26 and no coercive action be taken against him till it hears the case on the next date of hearing.

During the proceedings on Friday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that Rao has surrendered but he was not cooperating in the probe. He submitted a status report in the court and sought extension of police custody by a week.

Mehta told the court that Rao had been keeping an illegal surveillance of targeted individuals under the guise of tracking marxists.

Senior advocate Ranjeet Kumar, appearing for Rao, claimed that the former SIB chief was being harassed in the name of interrogation and was being questioned from 10 am to 10 pm.

The top court has posted the matter for hearing on January 16 next year.

On December 12, Rao had surrendered before the investigating officer at the Jubilee Hills police station here at 11 AM, as directed by the apex court.

The Telangana government earlier alleged that Rao was still withholding his iCloud accounts despite court order.

The apex court on May 29 granted interim protection from coercive action to Rao and directed him to give an undertaking that he would return to India within three days after the receipt of his passport.

Rao has moved the top court challenging an order of the Telangana High Court which dismissed 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, Rao may be declared a "proclaimed offender" if he does not appear before the court by June 20.

If a person is declared a proclaimed offender, the court can order attachment of properties of the accused.

A suspended DSP of SIB was among four police officials who were arrested by Hyderabad Police since March 2024, for allegedly erasing intelligence information from various electronic gadgets as well as for alleged phone-tapping during the previous BRS regime. They were subsequently granted bail.

The accused are part of the alleged conspiracy in which they "misused" the resources of SIB for political purposes by putting citizens from different walks of life under surveillance, police had said.

Those named as accused in the case and others had allegedly developed profiles of several persons without authorisation and were accused of monitoring them secretly and illegally and using them in a partisan manner to favour a political party at the behest of some persons.

They are also accused of a conspiracy to destroy records and evidence of their crimes, according to police.