Hyderabad: The Nampally court granted conditional bail to suspended deputy superintendent of police (DSP) D Praneeth Rao in the phone tapping case after being in judicial custody for approximately 11 months.
The court directed Praneeth Rao to appear before the Panjagutta SHO every Monday at 11:00 am for the next eight weeks. He was also ordered to surrender his passport before the court and instructed to cooperate with the investigation and refrain from influencing witnesses.
Suspended DSP is likely to be released by February 14 evening or in the early hours of February 15.
On January 27, the Supreme Court granted bail to a suspended additional superintendent of police (ASP) Mekala Thirupathanna who is one of the accused in the phone tapping case in Telangana. In September 2024, the Telangana government opposed the bail plea of the ASP accused number four in the case, who is currently in judicial custody.
On January 30, Telangana High Court granted bail to former Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Bhujang Rao and former Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Radhakrishna Rao. The Telangana High Court stipulated that both defendants must furnish two sureties of Rs 1 lakh each and submit their passports.
About phone tapping case
The phone-tapping allegations under the previous BRS government came to light last year in March with the arrest of Deputy Superintendent of Police Praneeth Rao following a complaint from his superior, D. Ramesh, Additional SP with the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB).
Then chief of SIB, Prabhakar Rao had allegedly constituted a team within the SIB with his trusted aides including Praneeth Rao for surveillance of rival political leaders, their families and dissidents within the ruling party, businessmen, journalists and even judges.
Earlier, public prosecutor Palle Nageswara Rao informed the Telangana High Court that approximately 4,500 phone lines were tapped from non-Airtel subscribers between November 15 and 30, 2023, coinciding with the assembly election period.
He informed the court that the data they have pertains to only 20 percent of the tapped phones, while 80 percent belong to the Airtel network, which they could not recover due to the accused destroying the relevant devices.
Nageswara Rao revealed that the Special Intelligence team operated without restraint, violating all regulations regarding phone interception and illegally tapping the phones of as many as 190 Congress leaders.
During a media interaction in Karimnagar in 2021, Revanth Reddy said that officers in the department were not happy with Rao’s conduct and abuse of authority. “On the direction of the CM (former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao), about 30 police officers led by Dugyala Praneeth Rao put the DGP under surveillance. Many police officials are facing issues in the department.”
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