Hyderabad: Justice J Sreenivas Rao of the Telangana high court on Tuesday refused to grant any interim protection from arrest to former intelligence chief of Telangana police, T Prabhakar Rao, who is facing allegations of indulging in phone tapping during the previous BRS govt.
Following his flight to the USA, police termed him an absconder and got his passport cancelled and a red corner notice issued against him. Prabhakar Rao’s counsel, T Niranjan Reddy, said police were doing all this even when he was ready to come down and appear before the police. He tried to derive strength from an order of the Supreme Court that allowed another absconder, Sravan Kumar, to appear before the police without any coercive measures.
“It is not true that he tapped the phones of 19 judges of the Telangana high court. All that Prabhakar did was to obtain the call data of one HC judge and analyse it after some complaints. We are entitled to do so. We can collect the call data of judges. That need not be seen as phone tapping,” he said while seeking a week for Prabhakar to appear before the police.
The counsel urged the court to direct the police not to arrest Prabhakar Rao in the meantime.
Appearing for the state, senior counsel Sidhartha Luthra said that Prabhakar Rao ran out of the country, and he is left with no other option now because his passport was cancelled. “What is inevitable now is being sought to be shown as voluntary,” he said.
The judge refused to grant any interim relief to Prabhakar Rao and posted the case to April 25.
