Bombay HC Rejects IPS Rashmi Shukla's Plea Seeking Quashing of FIR in Phone Tapping Case

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the Maharashtra government to give a seven-day notice to senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla in case of any coercive steps are to be taken against her in the alleged phone tapping and leak of sensitive documents case. A division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sarang Kotwal also rejected a petition filed by Shukla seeking to quash the FIR registered by the Mumbai police and to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

She is not named in the FIR. Shukla, currently serving as ADGP, CRPF (south zone) and posted in Hyderabad, had headed the Maharashtra Intelligence Department when the alleged phone tapping took place last year. "Both the prayers – quashing of the FIR and transfer the case to CBI are rejected. If the state government intends to take any coercive steps against the petitioner (Shukla) then it shall give a seven days notice to the petitioner," the bench said.

The bench gave the order on the petition filed by Shukla. In October this year, the Maharashtra government had told the HC that Shukla was not named as an accused in the case but there is material against her to conduct the investigation.

Shukla, in her petition, had alleged that she was being made a scapegoat and was being targeted by the Maharashtra government for submitting a report on the alleged corruption in police transfers and postings. The plea further said that the state intelligence department, which she was heading at that time, had taken the requisite permissions from the Additional Chief Secretary of the Maharashtra government before the surveillance.

In her petition, Shukla stated that she had exposed the alleged nexus between ministers and politicians and other gross corruption involved in assigning postings to police officers. The FIR was registered at the BKC Cyber police station in Mumbai in March this year against unidentified persons for allegedly tapping phones illegally and leaking certain confidential documents and information.

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