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MHA not aware of telephone tapping in Telangana by BRS government, says official
The previous BRS government didn't seek central approval for phone tapping, says MHA. The Telangana home department claims ex-SIB chief violated norms and misled officials.
Hyderabad : The previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government had not taken any instructions from the Centre for tapping the telephones of various individuals, including a high court judge, advocates, political opponents and journalists, a senior official of the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) has informed the Telangana high court.
People familiar with the matter said MHA undersecretary Nutan Kumari on Tuesday submitted an affidavit before the high court, which has initiated a suo motu (on its own) petition on the reports of snooping on a judge, among others, during the previous regime under K Chandrashekar Rao.
In the affidavit, Kumari said the MHA’s nod was not mandatory as the secretary of the state home department is the competent authority to issue an order for interception of the phones of any subscriber registered in that state.
Both Union and state governments are authorised to issue directions for lawful interception under Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, and Rule 419-A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951, she informed the court.
According to Rule 419-A, though state home secretary accords permission for such interceptions, there is a committee headed by chief secretary that reviews all such approvals for interceptions.
“All interception orders should be sent to the chief secretary within seven days. If the committee headed by the chief secretary chooses not to revoke such permissions, they will remain in force for a period of 60 days and may remain in force, through renewals, for a period of 180 days and not beyond that,” Kumari said in the affidavit.
It was also pointed out that records related to lawful interception are classified as highly confidential and are destroyed every six months by the competent authorities, as stipulated in the rules, unless they are needed for ongoing or future investigations.
Under Section 42(2) of the Telecommunication Act, 2023, any unauthorised access or interception of a telecommunication network or data could result in severe penalties, including imprisonment for up to three years, fines up to ₹2 crore or both, she said.
Meanwhile, special chief secretary of Telangana home department Ravi Gupta also filed an affidavit before the high court on Tuesday, claiming that accused police officers led by then special intelligence bureau (SIB) chief T Prabhakar Rao “fraudulently” obtained permissions from the department by misleading the higher-ups for intercepting phones and internet of selected individuals all over the state.
Gupta was the home secretary from October 2019 to December 2022 when the alleged unauthorised phone tapping started. Gupta said Prabhakar Rao was brought in as SIB chief for a period of three years upon his retirement from intelligence wing and played a key role in tapping the phones of various individuals during the BRS regime in the state.
“The then state government had issued separate orders allowing three senior IPS officers to permit interception on an urgent basis if there was no time to take approval from the competent authority (home secretary). But all such urgent actions had to be approved by the competent authority/home secretary later,” Gupta said.
The home secretary added the SIB team led by Prabhakar Rao, who was made designated authority to carry out tapping of phones, had violated norms. He had not taken approval from the competent authority to get his action ratified even after the tapping was done, Gupta said, adding the SIB team later destroyed the hard discs and all key data collected over the years.
