Hyderabad::
The Special Intelligence Bureau did not seek permission to tap the phones of selected persons, a Telangana Home Department official said in an affidavit in the phone-tapping case. Chief Secretary Ravi Gupta said the then Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief T Prabhakar Rao did not seek permission from him.
In the affidavit filed before the Telangana High Court, Mr. Gupta said Prabhakar Rao was posted as SIB chief for three years after retiring from the intelligence agency and played a key role in tapping the phones of various people to help the erstwhile Bharat Rashtra Samithi government in the state.
The senior IPS officer filed the affidavit in response to a notice from the Supreme Court, which had taken up the phone tapping case on its own initiative through a writ petition.
Ravi Gupta was the state’s home minister from October 2019 to December 2022. The alleged unauthorized wiretapping of telephone conversations began then and continued for another year. The home minister is the competent authority for authorizing wiretapping.
Mr. Gupta was reinstated as Special CS in charge of the Home Ministry on July 9 this year when he was transferred from his post as DGP.
“The then state government had issued separate orders allowing three senior IPS officers to take urgent interceptions when there was no time to obtain approval from the competent authority (Home Minister). But all such urgent actions had to be subsequently approved by the competent authority/Home Minister,” Mr. Gupta said.
The government, he added, had issued an order on July 20, 2020, making Mr. Rao the competent authority for interception of telephone conversations. The state government had also communicated this to the telecom department, telecom companies and internet service providers. But even this competent authority had to subsequently seek approval from the competent authority (Home Minister) to get its action ratified, Mr. Gupta said in his affidavit.
“In many cases, the team led by Mr Rao has even intercepted telephone and internet access of constitutional officials without seeking subsequent permission,” Gupta said, adding that permission had to be obtained within seven days.
He also reportedly said that he did not realise the criminal nature of Rao and his team’s activities until he read the chargesheet in the phone tapping case.
Mr. Gupta urged the court to quash the proceedings on its own motion, pointing out that the investigating agencies had done extensive work, a chargesheet had already been filed in court and a supplementary chargesheet containing the additional evidence collected would be filed shortly.
In an affidavit by a Home Ministry official in the same case, it was stated that no consent was sought for the wiretapping of telephone conversations, since the Home Ministry of the respective state is also the competent authority to issue an order to wiretap the telephones of all subscribers registered in that state.
