News Analysis India

Tag: Maharashtra phone tapping

  • Centre protecting IPS officer Rashmi Shukla in phone tapping case: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed the Centre is protecting IPS officer Rashmi Shukla who is being probed for alleged phone tapping of certain political leaders. Talking to reporters here, Raut said be it Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole, himself or some other leaders, all were labelled “anti-social elements” and their phones were tapped.

    Some people were labelled as “drug peddlers and gangsters” and this happened when the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was being formed in November 2019, the Rajya Sabha MP claimed.

    “Someone was conducting surveillance on us and trying to find out about the formation of the new government. Our privacy was invaded… One police officer, who is expected to work impartially, was doing it to show her loyalty to one political party and a leader. Now the Centre is protecting her, like always. This is unfortunate,” Raut said without naming Shukla, a former head of the State Intelligence Department (SID).

    The senior IPS officer is facing an FIR in Mumbai and is being probed for allegedly putting the phone numbers of Raut and former BJP leader Eknath Khadse (who is now in the NCP) under surveillance when she headed the SID.

    The Pune police had also registered an FIR against Shukla in connection with alleged tapping of the phones of Patole. Shukla served as the Pune police commissioner between March 2016 and July 2018.

    She is currently posted with the Central Reserve Police Force. In a plea filed in the Bombay High Court in one of the alleged phone tapping cases, Shukla had claimed she was being “falsely implicated” and called herself a victim of “political vendetta”.

  • Mumbai Police summons CBI director Subodh Jaiswal in phone tapping-data leak case

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: The Cyber Cell of Mumbai Police on Saturday summoned CBI director and former Maharashtra DGP Subodh Kumar Jaiswal in a phone tapping and data leak case, a senior official said here.

    Jaiswal has been asked to be present to record his statement on October 14, the police official said.

    The summons was sent by email, he added.

    The case relates to the ‘leak’ of a report prepared by IPS officer Rashmi Shukla about alleged corruption in police transfers in Maharashtra when she headed the state intelligence department (SID).

    Jaiswal was the director-general of police during this period.

    It was alleged that phones of senior politicians and officials were tapped illegally during the inquiry and the report was leaked deliberately, but the FIR registered in this regard by the cyber cell does not name Shukla or any other official.

    Officials of the BKC cyber police station had earlier recorded Shukla’s statement.

    Shukla is now posted as Additional Director General of CRPF.

    The FIR was registered against unknown persons for obtaining “a classified letter and classified information” of the SID under section 30 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (fraudulently retaining a message delivered by mistake), sections 44(b) (failure to furnish information in time) and 66 (computer-related offence) of the Information Technology Act, 2008, and section 5 (wrongful communication of information) of the Official Secrets Act, 1923.

    Jaiswal, a 1985 Maharashtra-cadre IPS officer, has also served as Mumbai police commissioner in the past.

  • Did intelligence chief take nod from CM for phone tapping, asks Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Thursday sought to know whether Rashmi Shukla had sought the nod of chief minister for tapping phone calls, a day after the senior IPS officer said the state government had given its permission for interception of certain phone numbers.

    Shukla told the Bombay High Court on Wednesday that the Maharashtra government had given its permission for interception of certain phone numbers to authenticate complaints of corruption in police transfers and postings.

    Her counsel Mahesh Jethmalani had said that when Shukla was heading the state intelligence department, she was directed by the Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) to conduct surveillance of a few phone numbers.

    Shukla had then taken permission from the state government’s Additional Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte under provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act, Jethmalani said, adding that from July 17, 2020 to July 29, 2020, Kunte had given permission to Shukla to carry out surveillance.

    Reacting to it, Malik told reporters here that Shukla’s lawyers have informed the court that she had sought proper permissions to tap certain phone numbers. However, she had “mislead” the officials and sought the permission, the NCP spokesperson alleged.

    “It is imperative to find out whether police officer Rashmi Shukla had taken permission from chief minister for tapping phone calls,” Malik said without taking any name. She had sought permission under the pretext of sedition and national interest, but, in fact, tapped the calls of political opponents,” he alleged.

    Malik, whose party shares power with the Shiv Sena and Congress in Maharashtra, also claimed that Shukla was not transferred the way she has been telling about it. The Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance led by Uddhav Thackeray came to power in Maharashtra in November 2019 after the Assembly polls.

    Before that, BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis was the chief minister for five years. Shukla had moved the HC, challenging an FIR filed by the Mumbai police’s cyber cell in a case of illegal phone tapping and alleged leaking of sensitive documents related to police postings.

    She is currently serving as additional director general of the Central Reserve Police Force’s (CRPF) South Zone and is posted in Hyderabad. The alleged tapping of phones had taken place when Shukla headed the Maharashtra intelligence department.

    BJP leader and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had cited a letter purportedly written by Shukla to the then DGP about alleged corruption in police transfers. The letter also had details of intercepted calls, leading to an uproar with leaders of the Shiv Sena-led ruling coalition alleging that Shukla tapped phones without permission.

    Before the registration of the FIR, Sitaram Kunte had alleged in a report submitted to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray that it appears that Shukla herself had leaked the confidential report (to Fadnavis).