Phone tapping review committee says former SIB chief misguided it

Hyderabad: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Telangana phone tapping case has recorded the statement of former chief secretary A Santhi Kumari and former principal secretary of general administration (political) Raghunandan Rao on Monday, June 23.

As per section 5 (2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, the permission of the principal secretary of the home department, or the director general of police (DGP) is needed to tap anyone’s phone. Permission from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) under the Centre’s purview is also needed.

A review committee will thoroughly scrutinize the phone numbers listed for tapping before it is done.

Before the 2023 assembly elections, the Special Investigation branch (SIB) headed by its former chief T Prabhakar Rao was known to have sent the list of 618 phone numbers to be tapped and monitored to the review committee.

Santhi Kumari, who was the then chief secretary and used to head the review committee, has been reported to have sent that list to the DoT for approval.

The review committee members reportedly informed the SIT that Prabhakar Rao had misguided them by including several phone numbers under the guise of those suspected to have links with the Maoists. Because of the huge volume of numbers, the committee members informed the SIT that they couldn’t thoroughly scrutinize them.

The SIT has already taken written statements from the then principal secretary of law department Jitender, who is now the director general of police, and the chief of intelligence Anil Kumar.

As per reports, Prabhakar Rao had monitored over 4,000 phones numbers in a span of 15 days. From November 15 to 30, the phone numbers of 618 politicians were tapped. Though SIT officials initially believed that phone tapping was done during the by-election to Munugode assembly constituency, now they also believe that phone tapping was also done during the 2018 assembly elections.

On Tuesday, June 24, SIT will be recording the statements of BJP MP Eatala Rajender and some more politicians in connection with the phone tapping case.

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