Govt transfers Rashmi Shukla’s phone tapping case to CBI

Mumbai: The State Government on Friday issued orders to shift the investigation into IPS officer Rashmi Shukla’s alleged breach of Official Secrets Act from Mumbai police to the Central Bureau of Investigation

Mumbai: The State Government on Friday issued orders to shift the investigation into IPS officer Rashmi Shukla’s alleged breach of Official Secrets Act from Mumbai police to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Another case involving BJP leader Girish Mahajan who is a close associate of deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has also been handed over to the CBI as per a home department order. (Pratham Gokhale/HT PHOTO)

Another case involving BJP leader Girish Mahajan who is a close associate of deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has also been handed over to the CBI as per a home department order.

In the case of Rashmi Shukla, the Mumbai cyber cell had registered an FIR on March 26, 2021, based on the complaint lodged by an assistant commissioner, SID, against unknown persons for leaking a classified report filed by Shukla. The file contained crucial details pertaining to some private individuals who allegedly used their political connections and facilitated transfers and postings for senior police officers in exchange for money.

Three days before the FIR was lodged, Devendra Fadnavis, who was then leader of opposition, had alleged rampant corruption in transfers and postings of police officers in Maharashtra at a press briefing. He had pointed out certain documents and the report prepared by the then Maharashtra State Intelligence Department (SID) commissioner Rashmi Shukla to support his allegations. He claimed that the state did not act on Shukla’s report highlighting alleged corruption in transfers and postings of police officers, adding that he would hand over the entire incriminating material, including a pen drive containing Shukla’s report, to the Union ministry of home affairs.

Shukla’s report, filed in August 2020, contained the names of six IPS officers and 23 state service officers who were in touch with the alleged brokers and indicated how some transfers took place due to political influence.

Police officers investigating the leak of the report say that Shukla, at present posted in Hyderabad as additional director general of the Central Reserve Police Force, south zone, had copied the report onto three pen drives. While two pen drives were recovered by the cyber cell, the third one was sent by Fadnavis to the union home secretary.

The MVA government had wanted back the pen drive sent to the union home secretary to verify the leak and had written to the centre several times asking for it, but they it got no response from the union home ministry.

Former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey had transferred the case, earlier investigated by the Mumbai Cyber police, to the Colaba police, entrusting the probe to police inspector Sanjay Mohite who had investigated the illegal phone tapping case against Shukla and who also filed the charge sheet against her in the matter.

“The police had also recorded the statement of Shukla as well as the now deputy chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis when Sanjay Pandey was the Mumbai Police Commissioner,” said a police officer who is close to the developments in the case.

But now that the new government has transferred the case to the CBI, it will be investigated afresh.

In the case of Girish Mahajan, he and 28 others were originally booked by the Jalgaon police for extortion and criminal intimidation based on a complaint lodged by office-bearers of an educational institute in Jalgaon district, but the case was subsequently transferred for investigation to Pune police in January 2021.

As per the complaint against Mahajan, a lawyer named Vijay Patil who is also a director in the educational trust Jilha Maratha Vidyaprasarak Sahakari Samaj alleged that Mahajan and others threatened and asked him to resign from his position. He also alleged that during a visit to Pune in 2018, he was forcibly taken to a flat in Sadashiv Peth and threatened that he would be booked in false offences if he did not comply. It’s an allegation that Mahajan has denied, adding that there is no role that the FIR directly attributes to him. This case will also now be reinvestigated.