The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked former Telangana police intelligence wing head T Prabhakar Rao, who is facing charges of phone-tapping, to provide the correct ID and password for his iCloud and other cloud backups to the investigating agency. “As and when the petitioner is summoned, he shall take steps to reset and activate the password in the presence of forensic experts as submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner,” a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan ordered. The court was hearing the state’s application to vacate its order granting Rao interim protection from arrest. The bench extended the protection till the next date of hearing. Rao is named as a prime accused in the Hyderabad police case into the phone tapping of Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s (BRS’s) political rivals when the party was in power. Appearing for the state, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said there was no progress due to lack of cooperation from Rao. He said the facts are shocking and that the officer had formatted his devices, thereby destroying electronic evidence. Senior Advocate D S Naidu, appearing for Rao, denied that he was not cooperating. He said that everything the investigators asked for had been shared with them except the password to his personal iCloud devices. He added that the investigators have Rao’s devices and submitted that Rao had been summoned 11 times and questioned for 18 hours and it was recorded. On the iCloud password, he said, “I (Rao) have forgotten that. It is a very old account”. He offered to reset it in the presence of forensic experts. When Justice Nagarathna referred to the charge that he had deleted data from the devices, Naidu said it was not Rao but the department computer experts who deleted it following standard security protocol. “I am not the only one in the department.I have not deleted anything on my own…If only I deleted, the information should still be there in the department…It is a norm that is practised in any security department,” he submitted. Justice Mahadevan pointed out that it was only Rao who had access to his iCloud account and asked, “What is the guarantee that you have not deleted anything from it as of now?” Naidu said “electronic footprints will be there…it cannot be erased” and computer experts can check. He said that all official devices have been handed over and only his personal account is there which has nothing official. ‘It cannot be a tamasha’ The senior counsel said that outsiders, including MPs and MLAs, were allowed to interrogate Rao saying he had tapped their phones. The court expressed surprise with Justice Nagarathna saying, “It cannot be tamasha. How can MPs and MLAs come in and interrogate? They cannot be spectators or they cannot be part of the investigation. Only the investigative agency can.” Mehta denied the charge and said he can file an affidavit about it. He added that it is between the accused and the probe agency except when a confrontation with witnesses or other accused is necessary. The solicitor general said, “He was intercepting phones of important people, not just politicians. After filing the anticipatory bail application, he formatted the device. It is as good as a new device. It is not my surmise. The Central Forensic Science Laboratory says that.” Mehta said, “it is our case that he has a backup because he purchased 15 hard discs. But he says he does not have anything. He is not cooperating because of the protective umbrella of this court's interim protection.” Alleging political motives to the probe, Naidu submitted that the chief minister had said that he will be put behind bars. Mehta, however, denied this. The Telangana High Court had dismissed Rao’s anticipatory bail plea on May 3, but the Supreme Court granted him interim relief on May 29.
