Bombay HC grants interim safety to IPS officer Rashmi Shukla until March 25 in cellphone tapping case

By PTI

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday restrained the Pune police from taking any coercive motion towards IPS officer Rashmi Shukla until March 25 in reference to the FIR registered towards her not too long ago in an alleged cellphone tapping case.

A bench of Justices S S Shinde and Nitin Borkar stated that Shukla deserved to be granted safety from arrest within the case till additional orders, since prima facie it appeared that she had been “singled out” within the current FIR registered towards her final week by the Bund Garden police station in Pune.

The bench additionally famous in its order that the stated FIR had been registered towards Shukla after a substantial delay.

It took notice of Shukla’s counsel and senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani that although the alleged incident of unlawful cellphone tapping had taken place over three years in the past, the Pune police’s FIR was registered towards Shukla solely on February 25 this yr.

Jethmalani additional stated that whereas a number of different officers of the Maharashtra police had been concerned in acquiring the sanction for placing sure cellphone numbers beneath surveillance, the FIR had been registered solely towards Shukla.

The Maharashtra authorities’s counsel Y P Yagnik, nonetheless, opposed Shukla’s request for interim safety from arrest.

He additional sought a while to file a reply to her plea saying {that a} copy of the petition had been served to him solely on Thursday.

Yagnik urged the excessive court docket to not go any interim orders on the plea.

The bench, nonetheless, stated that Shukla had made a case match for ad-interim reduction and that in passing its order, the excessive court docket was merely following the mandate of the Supreme Court.

“We will pass appropriate orders. As per the petitioner’s submissions, you (state police) are filing the FIR after three-and-a-half years of the alleged cause of action,” the HC stated.

“Is it not a case of malafide action that while apparently several officers are involved, the FIR is filed against only one officer? She is a serving IPS officer, holding a responsible post in Andhra Pradesh. Where is the scope of her absconding?” it stated.

While Yagnik argued that the court docket was contemplating “only one side of the case,” Jethmalani argued that Shukla had been singled out and subsequently, prayers within the petition deserved consideration.

Jethmalani additional stated that although a variety of officers had been concerned within the technique of alleged surveillance and cellphone interception on the premise that the stated cellphone holders had been supplying narcotics to school college students, no person else had been named within the stated FIR.

The senior lawyer additionally advised the HC that not one of the cellphone numbers allegedly intercepted had been registered within the title of any politicians.

The HC then stated that prima facie, it was “convinced” that Shukla deserved to be granted safety till additional orders.

“First of all, there is a delay in registering the FIR. Secondly though other officers were involved in obtaining sanction for the surveillance of certain phone numbers, FIR is only against the petitioner,” the excessive court docket stated in its order.

“Thirdly, the petitioner is a high-ranking officer and is occupying a responsible post of ADG with the CRPF, Hyderabad. It is unlikely that she will abscond. Therefore, she needs to be given protection,” it stated.

The HC bench additionally recorded in its order that Jethmalani, on the directions from Shukla, stated that she was keen to increase “full cooperation” to the police in its probe within the case.

The HC granted two weeks to the Pune police to file its reply to Shukla’s plea.

It posted the matter for additional listening to on March 25 and stated that no coercive motion should be taken towards Shukla within the case till then.

Shukla, who was posted as Pune police commissioner between March 2016 and July 2018, is presently on central deputation and posted as extra director basic of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Hyderabad.

The FIR was filed towards Shukla beneath related sections of the Indian Telegraph Act for alleged unlawful tapping of telephones of politicians between 2015 and 2019 throughout her tenure because the Pune police commissioner.

Seeking to quash the FIR, the IPS officer has stated in her plea that she was being “falsely implicated” within the case and that she was a sufferer of “political vendetta”.