Nearly four months after the Bombay High Court dismissed two phone tapping cases against her, the Maharashtra Government on Thursday appointed senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla as the new State Director-General of Police (DGP), the first-ever woman to occupy the coveted post. An IPS officer of 1998 batch, Shukla replaces Rajnish Sheth, who retired on December 31, as the new DGP of the state.
Shukla, who is currently the Director-General of Seema Sashastra Dal, had earlier worked as the Director of the State Intelligence Department (SID) and held other prestigious state and central postings.
Shukha, it may be recalled, had come under rough weather during the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVS) government over the alleged tapping of Opposition leaders’ phones during the Devendra Fadnavis-led government between 2014 and 2019.
Two FIRs had been registered against Shukha for allegedly tapping the Opposition leaders. In the first FIR in Mumbai, Shukla had been accused of illegally tapping phones of Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders Uddhav Thackeray, Sanjay Raut and NCP leader Eknath Khadse, while she faced the charge of Congress leader Nana Patole’s telephone in the second FIR registered in Pune.
