Permission denied to prosecute Shukla

MUMBAI: Days after the Pune police filed a closure report in the phone-tapping case pending against 1988 batch IPS officer Rashmi Shukla, the home department has denied permission to the Mumbai police to prosecute her in yet another phone-tapping case filed in Mumbai. The developments are seen as steps towards clearing the decks for Shukla’s appointment in Mumbai in a key posting.

Shukla has an FIR registered against her in Colaba police station for tapping the phones of political leaders like Sanjay Raut and Eknath Khadse without taking due permission from the home department. The tapping took place during her tenure as the State Intelligence Department (SID) commissioner in 2020. She is also facing two other cases—the aforementioned Pune one when she was the city’s police commissioner between March 2016 and July 2018 and the other for leaking the report related to the tapping. The SID had registered a case with the cyber police with regard to the leaked report. The

Shinde-Fadnavis government, soon after being sworn in, however, transferred the case to the CBI. The Mumbai police had submitted an affidavit in court and had filed a chargesheet in court.

Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said, “The decision of not giving permission for prosecution was taken after the law and judiciary and home department opined that the sections under which the officer was booked were wrongly applied,” he said. “The responsibility for the alleged tapping was wrongly fixed on her. The case was registered on the basis of photo copies of the documents. She was victimised by booking her in the case. The government cannot allow such victimisation.”

HOME DEPT TO COPS

HT PHOTO IPS officer Rashmi Shukla