Phone Tapping Case: Bombay High Court Quashes Two FIRs Against IPS Officer Rashmi Shukla

The Bombay High Court on Friday quashed two FIRs against senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Rashmi Shukla accused of allegedly tapping politicians' phones between 2015- 2019 when the previous BJP led alliance was in power in the state.

Justices AS Gadkari and Sharmila Deshmukh quashed the FIRs after Advocate General Birendra Saraf informed the bench that Mumbai Police was refused sanction to prosecute Shukla under section 197 of the CrPC.

The FIR registered at Colaba police station, in Mumbai, was for allegedly tapping the phones of Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Eknath Khadse.

The FIR is Pune was with regard to tapping the phone of State Congress president Nana Patole. The Pune police has already filed a closure report, the court was informed.

Shukla had filed petitioner under Article 226 read with u/s 482 of the CrPC to quash the FIRs at Bund Garden Police Station Pune registered for offences u/s 26 of the Indian Telegraphs Act and for similar offences at the Colaba police station.

The Pune FIR is based on a complaint by State Congress President Nana Patole wherein he alleged that his phone was tapped during 2016-2017 under the pretext that it belonged to one Amjad Khan involved in a "narcotics smuggling" case. Patole further alleged that phones of Union minister Roasaheb Danve's personal assistant, then BJP MP Sanjay Kakade and other elected representatives were tapped.

Following the allegations, a three-member committee was formed by the State Government to probe the allegations. The committee was headed by IPS officer Sanjay Pandey, then Director General of Police, Maharashtra.

Shukla had submitted that the FIR was registered against her after three years. She claimed she was merely involved in granting approval for surveillance to unearth narcotics activities in Pune city.

She had further contended that there were multiple officers involved in the process of this surveillance but no FIR was registered against them.

Seeking to quash the FIRs, the IPS officer has said in her plea that she was being "falsely implicated" in the case and that she was a victim of "political vendetta".

Earlier, in December 2021 the Bombay High Court refused to quash another FIR registered by the Mumbai Police against unknown persons for leaking the confidential report prepared by Shukla on phone tapping. While the court did not quash the petition, it directed the police to give her a week's notice if they intended to arraign her an accused in the case.

Case Title: Rashmi Shukla vs State of Maharashtra