Senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla has been appointed as Maharashtra’s first woman Director General of Police (DGP). The state home department issued the order for her appointment on Thursday, sparking a fresh row with the Opposition.
Shukla was embroiled in controversy during the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s tenure when she was named as an accused in phone tapping cases.
Who is Rashmi Shukla?
Shukla, a 1988-batch Indian Police Service officer, is one of the senior-most cops in the Maharashtra Police. Before she was appointed DGP, Shukla was on central deputation heading the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).
She took charge of DGP Maharashtra from Mumbai police commissioner Vivek Phansalkar, who was holding the additional charge after Rajnish Seth retired from the post on December 31, 2023.
While she was serving as Pune police commissioner, 59-year-old Shukla was credited for starting initiatives like ‘buddy cop’ which was replicated across the state
After the MVA government came to power in the state in 2019, Shukla was allegedly viewed as being close to the previous Bharatiya Janta Paty (BJP) government in the state.
In 2020, she was transferred from her post as State Intelligence Commissioner (SID) to Civil Defence, which is seen as a non-executive one.
Shukla went on central deputation as ADG Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in February 2021. She was later given charge of SSB head.
With Shukla set to retire in June 2024, her tenure will be six months. However, the Maharashtra government can extend her service, as done in past with other DGPs.
Fallout With MVA Government
During the MVA government, three First Information Reports were registered for allegedly illegally tapping the phones of some opposition leaders when Devendra Fadnavis was chief minister of the state and Shukla headed the state intelligence department.
The Bombay High Court in September 2023 quashed two of the three FIRs registered against Shukla in this connection.
The two quashed FIRs were registered in Pune and Colaba in south Mumbai.
The Pune case was registered for allegedly recording phone calls of state Congress chief Nana Patole, while the Mumbai case was for allegedly recording phone calls of Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Eknath Khadse, who was earlier with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The FIRs came to be registered after Fadnavis, as leader of the opposition, cited a letter purportedly written by Shukla to the then-Maharashtra Director General of Police about alleged corruption in transfers in the police department.
In the Pune FIR, the police had submitted a C-Summary report (the case is neither false nor true) and had sought to close the case, while in the Mumbai case, the government had refused to grant sanction to prosecute Shukla.
Comments
0 comment