Bombay HC grants IPS officer Rashmi Shukla protection from arrest till March 25

The FIR registered in Pune is based on a complaint by Congress president Nana Patole where he has alleged that the officer resorted to tapping his phone illegally during the tenure of the previous government in tthe state.

In some relief to IPS officer Rashmi Shukla, the Bombay high court has restrained Pune police from arresting her till March 25. Shukla has been booked by the Pune police, while the Mumbai police too on Thursday night registered another FIR against her.

The Bombay high court has restrained Pune police from arresting IPS officer Rashmi Shukla till March 25. Shukla has been booked by the Pune police in an illegal phone tapping case. (HT FILE PHOTO.)

The FIR registered in Pune is based on a complaint by Congress president Nana Patole where he has alleged that the officer resorted to tapping his phone illegally during the tenure of the previous government, while the new FIR registered at Colaba police station in Mumbai is for allegedly tapping the phones of two senior Shiv Sena leaders when she was heading the State Intelligence Department (SID).

The division bench of Justice S S Shinde and Justice N R Borkar while hearing Shukla’s petition for quashing of the Pune FIR at the Bund Garden police station, was informed by senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani that the FIR was lodged arbitrarily with political vendetta and she was falsely implicated.

Jethmalani submitted that the FIR was registered belatedly as the alleged incident had taken place between 2016-18 while she was the Pune police commissioner, but the FIR was lodged last year. He submitted that the FIR was done at the behest of the current ruling alliance as she had submitted a report while she was the commissioner of SID mentioning names of many political leaders involved in transfer and postings of police officers in the state, and though other officers were involved only her name was mentioned in the FIR.

The bench was told that she deserved protection from arrest till her petition was heard. Jethmalani also assured the bench that Shukla would cooperate with the investigation.

Additional government pleader J P Yagnik opposed the prayer for protection and said that the police needed time to file its reply.

After hearing the submissions, the bench noted that the officer deserved protection from arrest as there was a delay in registering the FIR and as she is a high-ranking officer. The court while directing the police to file their response in two weeks, posted hearing of the petition for March 25.

According to the complaint by Patole, in 2016-17 when the BJP was in power in the state, his phone had been tapped on the premise that it belonged to a person involved in smuggling of narcotics. He had alleged that the phones of other politicians had also been tapped by Shukla without obtaining proper sanction from the relevant authorities.

Thereafter, the home department had constituted a three-member committee headed by then DGP Sanjay Pandey to probe the allegations. The committee in its report stated that Shukla had been involved in illegal phone tapping during her tenure as Pune CP.