Phone Tapping Case: IPS Officer Rashmi Shukla Approaches Bombay High Court Against Pune FIR

Shukla is currently posted in Hyderabad as the additional director general of the Central Reserve Police Force's (CRPF) South Zone. She was Pune city police commissioner between March 2016 and July 2018, when she is alleged to have done the phone tapping.

Her petition is likely to be heard by the bench of Justices SS Shinde and NR Borkar on Friday.

State Congress President Nana Patole 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.

The FIR against Shukla was filed on February 26 under relevant sections of the Indian Telegraph Act for alleged illegal tapping of phones of politicians between 2015 and 2019.

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.