With phone tap cases quashed, Rashmi Shukla may return to Maharashtra police in a top role

The court on Friday deemed it fit to quash the two cases, one filed in Pune and the other in Mumbai, of alleged illegal phone tapping where Shukla was named as an accused. Last month, the investigation into a related case was closed after the court allowed the CBI’s closure report.

The three cases created a political storm in 2021 with ministers alleging that their calls were intercepted illegally and data from the state intelligence department, which Shukla had headed, was leaked to then Opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis.

On March 23, 2021, at a press conference, Fadnavis claimed to have proof of heavy lobbying for plum postings by senior police officials with MVA politicians. Fadnavis said he had 6.3 GB data of call records, including the names of those involved, and announced that he was handing over them to the Union home secretary for action. He also referred to a report written by then state intelligence chief Shukla to then DGP Subodh Jaiswal. The report was forwarded by the DGP to then additional chief secretary (home) Sitaram Kunte for further action.

Fadnavis’s reference to what was a confidential report by the state intelligence chief caused an uproar, with MVA leaders seeking an explanation on how the Opposition leader had got access to the secret communication.

This led to an FIR being registered by the Mumbai cyber police on March 26, 2021, against unknown people under the Officials Secret Act, the Indian Telegraph Act and the Information Technology Act. Subsequently, two more FIRs were filed to investigate allegations of phone tapping raised by MVA ministers.

In the first FIR, the cyber police recorded the statement of Fadnavis in March 2022. The government said his statement was being recorded as a witness. But Fadnavis said it was made to look as if he was being made an accused or co-accused in the case, even though he was the one who had brought the corruption over transfers case to light.

Before a chargesheet was filed in the case, however, there was a change in government in the state. Immediately thereafter, in July 2022, the case was transferred to the CBI. The agency filed a closure report in May 2023 stating that while the offence had taken place, there is no clue about the culprits or any evidence against anyone to justify a trial.

The CBI also said that there was a possibility that the state intelligence department’s computer was hacked with malware to cause the data leak. On August 21, the court accepted the CBI’s closure report and the investigation in the case was stopped.

The issue of alleged illegal tapping was raised in the Assembly in 2021. A high-level inquiry was ordered by the government after Congress leader Nana Patole alleged that phones of several of his party colleagues as well as Shiv Sena and NCP leaders were illegally intercepted in 2016-17, when the Fadnavis-led NDA government was in power.

Patole said he had learnt that his phone had been tapped under “the pretext of it belonging to another person accused of involvement in the narcotics trade”. He called it an attempt “to destroy political careers”.

The second FIR in the case was filed in February 2022 in Pune, this time naming Shukla as an accused, based on allegations made by Patole, under sections of the Indian Telegraph Act.

After the change of guard in July, the Pune police in October filed a ‘C’ summary closure report, which meant that the FIR was found to be based on “mistake of facts”. In December 2022, the court refused to accept the report, directing the police to investigate the case further.

The third FIR was registered by the Colaba police in Mumbai based on separate allegations of phone tapping made by NCP leader Eknath Khadse and Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut. During the MVA rule, the police filed a 750-page chargesheet against Shukla, stating that she, as the then SID chief, had sought permission from the additional chief secretary (home) for tapping the phones of the two leaders by claiming that the phones belonged to two other individuals.

After the change in the government, the police said they needed sanction to prosecute Shukla, which the NDA government refused to grant. In January, Shukla sought discharge from the case stating that it could not go on against her without the sanction. The proceedings were pending.

Shukla had approached the high court seeking the quashing of the FIRs against her. She said that she was being targeted by the then ruling alliance for submitting a report on the involvement of various political leaders in transfers and postings of police officers in the state. She was granted interim protection by the court from arrest in two of the cases, while the pleas are pending hearing.

On Friday, Advocate-General Birendra Saraf informed the court that in the Pune case, the police had filed a closure report and no protest petition had been filed by the complainant. In the Mumbai case, he said, there was no sanction granted by the government to prosecute Shukla and that the police did not intend to challenge this decision. In view of this, the court quashed the two FIRs, bringing down the curtain on the cases lodged during the previous government.