HC Takes DC Report on Snooping as Suo Motu Writ Petition

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has taken up the case of the illegal phone-tapping of a High Court judge during the BRS government tenure, on a suo motu writ petition based on a report published in Deccan Chronicle on May 29 (HC judge's mob. tapped: Ex-ASP).

A division bench of the Telangana High Court, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Tadakamalla Vinod Kumar, will hear the suo motu writ petition at 2.15 pm on Tuesday.

Deccan Chronicle had reported that Justice Sarath Kaja of the Telangana High Court appeared to be one of the targets in the snooping case, as revealed in the confessional statement of former ASP N. Bhujanga Rao, who has since been arrested for his involvement in the case.

Considering the issue as serious, the court’s suo motu committee placed the issue before the Chief Justice for his permission to take up the issue. Chief Justice Aradhe on Monday directed the High Court registry to register the case as a suo motu writ petition.

Following this, the High Court registry made the Union home ministry, state chief secretary, the DGP, principal secretary (home), additional DGP (intelligence) and city police commissioner as the respondents to the writ petition.

The court also considered the report in other aspects like the confessional statement of the arrested police officers that the phone of every politician who criticised then minister K.T. Rama Rao in the TSPSC question paper leak scam and of judges was tapped on the instruction of the then SIB chief T. Prabhakar Rao, who monitored and tapped the phones of the High Court judge. There are also similar confession statements of other officers accused in the case —Mekala Tirupatanna and D. Praneeth Rao and former task force DCP G. Radha Kishan Rao.