No Coercive Action Against IPS Officer Rashmi Shukla Till March 25 In Phone Tapping Case: Bombay High Court

A division bench of Justices SS Shinde and NR Borkar granted Shukla relief in her petition filed under Article 226 read with u/s 482 of the CrPC to quash the FIR at Bund Garden Police Station Pune registered for offences u/s 26 of the Indian Telegraphs Act.

"Prima facie case is made out for protection," the court observed.

The 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.

During the hearing on Friday, Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani for Shukla submitted that the FIR was registered against her after three years. He said she was merely involved in granting approval for surveillance to unearth narcotics activities in Pune city.

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

Public Prosecutor JP Yagnik for the Pune Police sought time to file a reply. While granting him time, the court directed no coercive action against the officer.

Seeking to quash the FIR, 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".

In December 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

Appearances: Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethamalani, Advocates Gunjan Mangla, Utsav Trivedi and Sidharth Dharmadhikari appeared for Rashmi Shukla; Public Prosecutor JP Yagnik appeared for State