According to new directives, any calls made by political leaders would not be taken as “on record”.

Strong measures have been taken by the government to ensure that political leaders don’t get trapped because of their calls recorded in police station diaries, said a senior police official.

Politicians, it is alleged, make phone calls to police officers instructing them to show courtesy to their “men” behind bars.

Police had, so far, been maintaining written records of such calls, which can land politicians in trouble.

The state home department had earlier instructed police officers in the state not to register such calls and, according to the state Director General of Police D. Shivanandan, the message had been conveyed to all the police stations in the state on Nov. 18 last year.

Last December, the Supreme Court had come down heavily on former Chief Minister and presently Federal Minister for Heavy Industries Vilasrao Deshmukh for making phone calls to a police station in the Buldhana district to help Congress legislator Dilip Sananda who is also a well-known moneylender. The court, passing strictures, imposed a fine of 1 million rupees on the state government in the case. Deshmukh was trapped as the police had registered his call in the police diary.

The state government was embarrassed after the court took cognizance of Deshmukh’s instructions to police not to any action.