Rashmi Shukla’s appointment as Maharashtra DGP comes less than a year after she was appointed as director general of the Sashastra Seema Bal in March of last year.
Rashmi Shukla, a 1988-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, was appointed as the state’s next director general of police (DGP) on Thursday, becoming the state’s first woman police officer to hold the top police job. After Rajnish Seth departed on December 31, Mumbai Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar took over as DGP Maharashtra.
Shukla’s nomination as Maharashtra DGP comes less than a year after she was named director general of the Sashastra Seema Bal, the central police unit deployed along the border with Nepal, in March last year. The senior cop will turn 60 in June, but he is anticipated to be given a two-year term.
During the Devendra Fadnavis-led government between 2014 and 2019, the senior police officer’s prior time as state intelligence commissioner became contentious due to allegations that she illegally authorised the tapping of Opposition leaders’ phones. When the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi came to power, FIRs were also filed against her.
The first of the three cases was filed on March 26, 2021, by Mumbai cyber police for allegedly leaking a classified report drafted by Shukla that allegedly contained crucial details of some individuals who acted as middlemen for facilitating transfers and securing desired postings for senior police officers in exchange for money, using their political connections. The Central Bureau of Investigation concluded its investigation into this matter in August of last year.
The Bombay high court dismissed two additional charges filed against Shukla, Maharashtra’s former intelligence chief, in September of last year. Shukla is accused of illegally tapping the phones of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party leader Eknath Khadse in one FIR in Mumbai, and Congress politician Nana Patole’s phone in the other in Pune.
