New Delhi: Supreme Court Thursday directed Centre to provide passport/travel documents to former chief of Special Intelligence Bureau of Telangana, T Prabhakar Rao, to allow him to come back to India and also granted him interim protection in a phone tapping case in which he is being probed. The former IPS officer has been declared a proclaimed offender and has been residing in the United States.A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma brushed aside the strong opposition from the Centre and the state govt which submitted that it would set a wrong precedent to protect a proclaimed offender. They submitted that an accused should not be allowed to come back on his terms and conditions and authorities should be allowed to bring him back as per the law.“Pending consideration of this special leave petition, we direct the petitioner to appear before the concerned Investigating Authority/Officer. For that purpose, the Passport/travel document(s) for travel only to India shall be made available to the petitioner by the Chief Passport Officer/Competent Authority so that he could appear before the concerned Investigating Authority/Officer within a period of three days on receipt of the Passport/travel document(s) to India,” the bench said.“Till the next date of hearing, no coercive steps shall be taken as against the petitioner. The concerned Investigating Authority/Officer shall investigate the petitioner herein. The Investigating Authority/Officer shall submit status report of the investigation conducted, before this Court by the next date of hearing. The petitioner shall also file an affidavit of undertaking within a week before this Court that within three days from the date of receipt of the Passport/travel document(s) only to India, he would return to India and appear before the concerned Investigating Authority/Officer,” it said.