The complainant in the case is Additional Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) Rajiv Jain, who accuses Shukla of listening to the phone calls of Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party's (NCP) Eknath Khadse.
Digital Desk: A senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Rashmi Shukla, approached the Bombay High Court after a First Information Report (FIR) was filed against her in a case of alleged phone tapping at Mumbai's Colaba Police Station. Shukla filed a plea earlier this week through advocate Sameer Nangre, claiming that the FIR was "registered on a motivated complaint only with the intention of harassing her." On Thursday, senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani mentioned Shukla's petition before a division bench of Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Shriram M Modak, which will be heard on Friday. The complainant in the case is Additional Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) Rajiv Jain, who accuses Shukla of listening to the phone calls of Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party's (NCP) Eknath Khadse. The case was filed earlier this month under Section 165 (public servant obtaining any valuable thing, without consideration, from a person involved in any proceeding or business transacted by such public servant) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 26 of the Telegraph Act. Previously, on March 4, the high court granted protection to Shukla from arrest until March 25 in her petition to quash an FIR lodged against her at the Bund Garden police station in Pune. The Pune FIR is connected with the alleged illegal phone tapping of state Congress President Nana Patole during the previous BJP-led Maharashtra government's tenure. The high court noted a "prima facie" delay in registering the FIR and that the petitioner, as a high-ranking officer in a responsible position, required interim protection. The court also stated that, while the FIR was only filed against Shukla, other officers were also involved in the process of obtaining surveillance authorization for unearthing narcotics operations in Pune. On December 15, last year, the high court dismissed Shukla's petition challenging the FIR filed by Mumbai Police in March last year under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) against unidentified individuals for allegedly tapping phones and leaking confidential documents in response to a complaint by the State Intelligence Department (SID). On the other hand, the court ruled that Shukla was entitled to protection and ordered the police to give the IPS officer seven working days' notice if any coercive measures were to be taken against her.
