Bombay High Court quashes 2 phone tapping cases against IPS officer Rashmi Shukla

The Bombay High Court on Friday quashed two FIRs registered against IPS officer and Maharashtra's former intelligence chief Rashmi Shukla for allegedly recording phone calls of opposition leaders in the state when Devendra Fadnavis was the chief minister.

The two FIRs were registered when the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government was in power in the state. One was filed in Pune in February 2022 and the other in Mumbai in March 2022.

The case in Pune was registered over charges of recording phone calls of Congress leader Nana Patole, while the Mumbai case was for recording the phone calls of Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut and NCP leader Eknath Khadse.

A closure report was filed by the prosecution in the Pune case. However, the report was not accepted by a magistrate's court, which had directed the prosecution to investigate further. Later, a closure report was filed again in the case.

On the other hand, the state government refused to grant sanction for the prosecution of Rashmi Shukla in the Mumbai case.

On Friday, Rashmi Shukla's petitions came up for hearing before the bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Sharmila Deshmukh when Maharashtra Advocate General Birendra Saraf accepted that there was no sanction given by the government for prosecuting Rashmi Shukla. He added that the police will also not challenge the government's decision.

Another FIR was registered by the MVA government in 2021 which did not name Shukla but was against unknown persons. The IPS officer's statement was recorded in the case too. The case which involved the leak of phone call recordings and official documents was also closed recently.