Karnataka phone-tapping: CBI set to look at role of officers

Since the process of call interception by police authorities did not involve written instructions from the Chief Minister, Home Minister or any other ministers, the CBI probe into the case is expected to focus on the police and bureaucratic set-up involved in giving clearance for interceptions before the agency looks at the role of politicians, sources said.

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The primary complaint registered by Bengaluru police on August 19 refers to the alleged leak to the media of call intercepts of a suspect in a cheating case from the police department’s technical cell. The CBI is authorised to conduct a wider probe into all alleged illegal phone-tapping in the state from August 1, 2018 to August 19, 2019.

The CBI has been asked to investigate all “illegal/unwanted/unauthorised interceptions of telephones of political leaders belonging to the ruling party and opposition parties, as well as their associates, relatives and government servants’’. The probe will thus look into whether the authorisation protocol prescribed by law was followed in call intercepts during this period.

In emergencies, where getting the Home Secretary’s permission is not feasible, calls can be intercepted at the state level for three days with approval of an officer not below the rank of Inspector General of Police. This is on condition that the Home Secretary is informed of the interceptions within three working days and it provides approval in seven days, as per law.

The probe is expected to look at whether clearances were provided by the police authorities to tap phones of elected representatives by using dubious means.

One of the persons who will be investigated is former Bengaluru Commissioner Alok Kumar since the agency’s FIR states that an intercepted conversation of a suspect in a cheating case was taken away illegally on August 2 and delivered to the then police chief.