IPS officer Rashmi Shukla has approached the Bombay High Court seeking quashing of the FIR registered against her at Bund Garden police station in Pune in the alleged illegal phone tapping matter.
Shukla, who is currently serving as additional director general of the Central Reserve Police Force's (CRPF) South Zone and is posted in Hyderabad, filed the petition early this week through her advocate Sameer Nangre.
The petition will be listed for hearing on Friday before a division bench headed by justice S S Shinde.
An FIR was filed against Shukla on February 26 under the relevant sections of the Indian Telegraph Act for alleged illegal tapping of politicians' phones between 2015 and 2019 during her tenure as the Pune Police commissioner.
Seeking quashing of the FIR, her plea states that she is being “falsely implicated” in the case. Further she has claimed that the case against her stems out of “political vendetta”.
According to the police, a committee was formed to look into the allegations of illegal tapping of politicians' phones between 2015 and 2019. The three-member committee was headed by Sanjay Pandey – the current Mumbai Police Commissioner and former acting director general of police of the state. The committee recently submitted a report observing that Shukla had illegally tapped phones based on which the FIR was filed.
This is not the first time that Shukla has been caught in controversy regarding illegal phone tapping.
On December 15, 2021, the HC had dismissed her petition seeking quashing of an FIR registered by the Mumbai Cyber Cell in March 2021 against unknown persons over leak of her confidential phone tap report concerning allegations of corruption in police transfers and postings. She had prepared the report during her tenure as chief of State Intelligence. The FIR had not named her.
The HC had then even turned down her plea for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is already probing the allegations of corruption in police transfers and postings involving former home minister Anil Deshmukh.
However, the court has directed the police to give Shukla a notice of 7 working days in case if it plans to take any coercive action against the IPS officer.
