Data leak during MVA regime: Closure report by CBI accepted by court

“Closure Report filed… is accepted. A summary is granted,” the magistrate court said Monday.

An FIR was registered by the Cyber police station on March 26, 2022 on behalf of the then Assistant Police Commissioner of the State Intelligence Department (SID) against unknown persons under sections including the Official Secrets Act, Indian Telegraph Act and Information Technology Act.

The FIR referred to a press conference held on March 23, 2022, by Fadnavis, who was then the Leader of Opposition, in which he had spoken about calls between senior police officials and a private person. It was claimed that there was heavy lobbying for plum postings by police officials in exchange for money with politicians in the MVA government.

The FIR said that Fadnavis had also shown a pen drive stating that it had over 6 GB of data related to the calls. The FIR said that a copy of a confidential communication between the then SID commissioner Rashmi Shukla and the DGP was also referred to in the press conference.

The FIR said that the contents referred to by Fadnavis was confidential information collected by the officials of the SID around August 2020.

The FIR said that unknown persons had illegally accessed the information and provided it to Fadnavis.

After the change in government, however, the case was transferred to the CBI in July 2022. In August, the FIR was re-registered by the CBI on August 19, 2022 for a further probe. After the closure report was filed, the court called for the response of the SID, which was the complainant in the case. The SID too had given its no objection to the closure report.

During the MVA government’s term, two more cases linked to alleged data leak and phone tapping were filed. In one case filed by the Colaba police, IPS officer Shukla has been named as an accused, claiming that she had tapped phone conversations of political leaders and a chargesheet was filed.

After the change in government, the state rejected the police’s proposal to grant a sanction to prosecute Shukla. She has sought for a discharge from the case in absence of the sanction which is pending and kept for hearing in November. In another case filed by the Pune police, a closure report was filed but it was rejected by a court in Pune in December 2022 and further probe was ordered.