Govt gets HC nod to quiz IPS officer Rashmi Shukla

The Bombay High Court bench of Justice SS Shinde and Manish Pitale, on Thursday, granted Maharashtra government permission to question senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla at her residence in Hyderabad under section 160 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), and also to video record her statement after the state agreed to not take any coercive action against her till the next hearing.

Senior counsel Darius Khambata appearing for Maharashtra state sought the court’s permission to send a team of police officials to question Shukla at her residence in Hyderabad after she expressed her difficulty, in a reply to a summons issued, to come down to Mumbai due to the present pandemic condition. Khambata also sought permission from the court to video record her statement, and further sought that apart from her lawyer nobody else should be present.

Senior counsel Mahesh Jethmalani appearing for Shukla did not object Khambata’s contention of questioning Shukla at her residence, but sought for interim protection from arrest. Khambata, after taking instructions, informed the court that no coercive action will be taken against Shukla till the next date of hearing.

Shukla had moved the high court on Monday seeking an urgent hearing and a directive to Mumbai police not to take any coercive action against her in accordance with the FIR lodged into alleged phone tapping case. Stating that instead of applauding her work of exposing police and ministers nexus in postings she is being framed and that she apprehends her arrest in the case. In her plea through advocate Sameer Nangre, the senior officer has said that state government is only trying to "arm-twist her by filing bogus and frivolous cases."

"I beg to approach this court for urgent relief orders of no coercive action against me by the Mumbai Police in accordance to the FIR lodged by its cyber cell department," Shukla, a 1988 batch IPS officer stated in her plea.