Former Indian Police Service officer Rashmi Shukla. (File photo)After a court rejected the Pune police’s closure report and Opposition parties in Maharashtra boycotted the Assembly session over the Speaker denying them an opportunity to discuss the issue, the phone tapping case involving IPS officer Rashmi Shukla has come back to the limelight.
On Thursday, the Opposition leaders latched on to the court’s rejection of the closure report and demanded an investigation against not only Shukla, an IPS officer who was the Pune police commissioner during the period of the alleged phone-tapping, but also “those behind her”.
Here’s a primer on the alleged scandal that took place between March 2016 and July 2018.
Allegations against Shukla
In July 2021, when the Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance was in power in the state, Congress president Nana Patole made the phone tapping allegation for the first time. Speaking in the state Assembly, he alleged Devendra Fadnavis’s BJP government was surveilling several BJP and non-BJP leaders, including him, and demanded an inquiry.
He claimed the phones of Union minister Raosaheb Danve’s personal assistant, then BJP MP Sanjay Kakade, Prahar Party’s Bacchu Kadu, senior government officials, and journalists were tapped. “I was a member of Parliament in 2016-17 and there was no reason to tap my phone. This is an attempt to destroy political careers,” Patole had said.
NCP MLA Dilip Walse-Patil, who was then the home minister in the MVA government, announced the government would probe Patole’s allegations. A three-member committee, headed by then DGP Sanjay Pandey, was formed to conduct an inquiry into the matter. The other members of the committee were the commissioner of the State Intelligence Department (SID) and the additional commissioner of the Special Branch. Based on the findings of the inquiry, assistant police inspector Vaishali Chandgude lodged an FIR against Shukla and others (names not mentioned) at the Bundgarden police station on February 25.
The Pune police said the three-member committee had found that the illegal phone tapping of elected representatives was done “with wrong political motives”.
“The inquiry report submitted by the committee regarding the investigation of those found involved in the illegal phone tapping has been accepted by the state government. The committee has stated in its report that Rashmi Shukla did illegal phone tapping at the time when she was the commissioner of Pune city police. So an offence has been lodged and others under Section 26 of the Indian Telegraph Act,” a press release by the Pune police read.
Phones of ‘drug peddlers’ tapped for 60 days
The FIR against Rashmi Shukla says the phones of Nana Patole, MLA Bachchu Kadu (now a part of the Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde), BJP leader and former MP Sanjay Kakade and Ashish Deshmukh, were allegedly tapped illegally for 60 days.
According to the FIR, Patole’s phone was tapped under the name ‘Amjad Khan’, Kadu’s under ‘Nijamuddin Babu Shaikh’, Deshmukh’s under ‘Raghu Chorge’ and ‘Hina Salunkhe’. All three names and numbers were alleged to be of drug peddlers involved in the smuggling of narcotics substances to college students.
Kakade’s phone was tapped under the names ‘Tabrej Sutar’ and ‘Abhijit Nayar’, and he was alleged to be a member of the dreaded Bapu Nayar gang involved in land grabbing, extortion and other crimes in Pune city.
As per the FIR, the phones of Patole and Kadu were tapped between September 18 and November 14 in 2017. The phones of Kakade and Deshmukh were tapped between November 13, 2017, and January 9, 2018.
The FIR also mentioned that despite having proper knowledge of legal procedures for phone tapping, then Pune city police commissioner Shukla allegedly did follow the rules and carried out phone tapping with “bad political motives”.
BJP returns to power, closure report filed
In July 2022, the political situation in Maharashtra changed and the BJP again came to power by allying with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction. On October 7, the Pune city police filed a C-Summary report claiming that the FIR, in this case, was found to be based on a mistake of fact.
On Wednesday, the magisterial court in Pune where the report was filed, set this closure report aside and asked the police to further investigate the matter.
Shukla is currently on central deputation with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).