K Chandrasekhar Rao, allegedly tapped the phones of a high court judge and his wife, according to Hyderabad police commissioner K Srinivas Reddy, who informed the court on Wednesday.
HYDERABAD: The former Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in Telangana, led by K Chandrasekhar Rao, allegedly tapped the phones of a high court judge and his wife, according to Hyderabad police commissioner K Srinivas Reddy, who informed the court on Wednesday.
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In a detailed affidavit, Reddy stated that the accused officers had obtained the call and IP details of Justice K Sarath and his wife. The affidavit also mentioned that other individuals on the list included then opposition leader A Revanth Reddy, his brothers, and several other MLAs. A chargesheet has been filed against six accused in the case, including a former DCP.
“Our investigators took the permission of the Hyderabad chief metropolitan magistrate to obtain these details from telecom service providers,” the commissioner stated in his affidavit submitted before a bench comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice T Vinod Kumar.
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The affidavit also listed other names for which the accused officers obtained call detail records (CDR) and IP detail records (IPDR), including politicians, bureaucrats, police officers, and mediapersons. The list featured then opposition leader A Revanth Reddy (now CM), his brothers Anumula Kondal Reddy and Anumula Tirupati Reddy, and many other MLAs.
The phone tapping was done in violation of laws, according to the commissioner, who added that the mobile numbers were intercepted or CDR and IPDR data collected without any justifiable reason, such as a public emergency or in the interest of public safety.
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While phone tapping requires authorization by either the Union or state home secretary, the BRS government had assigned the task to SIB chief T Prabhakar Rao, the primary accused in the case.
“Rao was entrusted with this task after his retirement and committed various irregularities in invading the privacy of individuals. He operated a separate entity with his own set of officers who even went to the extent of destroying SIB records after BRS lost the elections,”
the commissioner stated.
