The Telangana government has issued orders demoting a former officer with Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) in connection with the illegal phone tapping case, cancelling the accelerated promotion granted to him earlier and reverting him to a lower rank.
The officer, Dugyala Praneeth Rao, was serving as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and has now been demoted to the rank of Circle Inspector.
Praneeth Rao, a 2007 batch officer, was earlier suspended following his arrest in the case in 2024. With the cancellation of his accelerated promotion, he will continue in service as an Inspector.
He served in the Special Intelligence Branch during the previous government and faced allegations of illegally tapping the phones of political leaders and elected representatives.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case has also questioned former chief of Special Investigation Bureau (SIB), T. Prabhakar Rao, on multiple occasions as part of the probe.
Praneeth Rao too was earlier questioned for several hours by the SIT on June 13, 2025, at the Jubilee Hills ACP office in connection with illegal phone tapping and the alleged destruction of digital evidence. Investigators have accused him of destroying hard disks that allegedly contained crucial data related to the surveillance operations.
He was arrested on March 13, 2024, after Panjagutta police detained him from his residence in Rajanna Sircilla district. The arrest followed a complaint by Additional Superintendent of Police D. Ramesh, his former superior, who accused him of illegally intercepting the calls of senior political leaders and government officials.
Published – February 04, 2026 11:32 am IST
