The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to former Telangana intelligence chief T Prabhakar Rao in the alleged phone tapping case in the State [T. Prabhakar Rao v. State of Telangana]

The case against Rao is that he illegally intercepted the phones of politicians, businesspersons, journalists and even High Court judges during the tenure of the earlier Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government.

A Bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice R Mahadevan today granted anticipatory bail to Rao.

The Court had earlier granted interim anticipatory bail to Rao. The same was made absolute today.

The Bench noted that Rao had been cooperating with the investigation and that the probe was almost complete with a chargesheet likely to be filed in the next few weeks.

“The appellant shall not, in any way, tamper with the evidence or the material on record, nor attempt to influence any of the witnesses. Any breach of the aforesaid conditions may entail cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted to the appellant,” the Court ordered while disposing of the matter.

During the hearing, counsel for Rao submitted that the petitioner had complied with the orders of the Court and had earlier been granted interim protection during the pendency of the case.

Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the State, submitted that the interim protection may be confirmed, while leaving the issue of maintainability open.

The Court accepted the submission and disposed of the petition while granting relief to Rao.