The phone-tapping case against BRS legislator and former minister T. Harish Rao has been shifted from Panjagutta police station in Hyderabad to Siddipet One Town police station, where a fresh FIR was registered on Saturday, police said. Officials said the move was made on jurisdictional grounds because the alleged offence took place in Siddipet. The case had been handled by the Panjagutta police since the complaint was received in December 2024.
The complaint was filed by Gadagoni Chakradhar Goud, founder of the Farmers First Foundation, who was the Congress candidate from Siddipet in the 2023 Assembly polls. In a complaint dated December 1, 2024, he alleged that both his and his wife's phones were intercepted during the campaign. Panjagutta police booked a case, Crime No. 1205/2024, on that complaint.
The fresh case, Crime No. 496/2026, names Harish Rao as the prime accused along with former DCP Radhakishan Rao and others, police said. IPC Sections 419, 420, 467 and 406, dealing with cheating, forgery and breach of trust, have been included, as have Sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, which cover identity theft and impersonation through computers.
The two accounts of the additions do not match. One puts the number of new provisions at five, filed against Harish Rao and suspended police officer P. Radha Kishan Rao. The other says the fresh FIR carries six more sections than the original. Radhakishan Rao is described in one version as a suspended officer and in the other as a former deputy commissioner of police. Police did not clarify either difference.
The litigation has already travelled to the higher courts. Harish Rao moved the High Court seeking to quash the FIR, and the case was quashed. Goud then approached the Supreme Court against that order, and his petition is pending. The transfer and the fresh registration went ahead while the courts are still dealing with the matter.
At the centre of the dispute is the alleged interception of mobile phones belonging to Goud and members of his family during the 2023 election campaign. The accusation is that Harish Rao and Radhakishan Rao were behind the alleged tapping. Nothing has been tested in a trial, and no finding has been recorded against anyone named in the case.
With the case now lodged in Siddipet, the local police are expected to take over the investigation. It was not immediately clear whether the pending Supreme Court petition would have a bearing on the fresh FIR, or whether the earlier investigation record would be carried over.
(With inputs from media reports)