Court closes case over leak of IPS officer Rashmi Shukla’s confidential report

The case involving the disclosure of a confidential report by IPS officer Rashmi Shukla on police transfers in Maharashtra has been closed by the CBI.

The metropolitan magistrate court on Monday brought down the curtain on one of the most contentious cases of the politician-police nexus which pertained to disclosure of a confidential report prepared by senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla highlighting irregularities in police transfers and postings in Maharashtra.

Pune, India - June 23, 2017:Rashmi Shukla, Commissioner of Police, Pune City posses for photo at her office in Pune, India, on Friday, June 23, 2017. (Photo by Pratham Gokhale/ Hindustan Times) (Pratham Gokhale/HT PHOTO)

An additional chief metropolitan magistrate accepted an A-summary report (an investigation report indicating that the facts are true but there is no prosecutable evidence to put the person on trial) submitted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on May 22, 2023. The agency had sought closure of the case registered by the Mumbai cyber cell under the Official Secrets Act.

When Shukla was the State Intelligence Department (SID) commissioner, she prepared a report in August 2020, naming two senior politicians – the then home minister and another person known as “Dada”, and six IPS officers and 23 state service police officers. Her report also named some private individuals who acted as middlemen to facilitate transfers and secure desired postings for senior police officers in exchange for money and by using their close connection with the two politicians.

At a press conference on March 23, 2021, then opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis presented a few documents and also referred to Shukla’s report to support his allegations that there was rampant corruption in transfers and postings of police officers in Maharashtra. He claimed that the state government did not act on Shukla’s report, and therefore, he was going to hand over the entire material, including a pen drive containing the report, to the union ministry of home affairs.

Three days later, on March 26, the Mumbai cyber cell registered an FIR, based on a complaint filed by an assistant commissioner at SID, against unknown persons for leaking the report.

Police officials claimed that Shukla, presently posted at Hyderabad as additional director general of the Central Reserve Police Force, south zone, had copied the report on three pen drives. While two pen drives were recovered by the cyber cell, the police suspected that the third one – an office copy of SID - was purportedly sent by her to Fadnavis, who in turn passed it on to the union home secretary.

It is worth mentioning that then chief secretary Sitaram Kunte submitted a report to then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, detailing the circumstances in which Shukla had intercepted the calls of six people in the name of “public safety” and thus “misguided the authorities”. He further said that no transfers of police officers had taken place between June 27, 2020, and September 1, 2020, during which Shukla intercepted the telephone calls and based on which she prepared the report.

A month after the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government came to power in July 2022, the state handed over the case to the CBI. The agency probed the matter and in May 2023 filed an A-summary report, seeking closure of the case.