HC grants interim protection to IPS officer Shukla till March 25

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday restrained the Pune police from taking any coercive action against IPS officer Rashmi Shukla till March 25 in connection with the FIR registered against her recently in an alleged phone tapping case. A bench of Justices S S Shinde and Nitin Borkar said that Shukla deserved to be granted protection from arrest in the case until further orders, since prima facie it appeared that she had been "singled out" in the present FIR registered against her last week by the Bund Garden police station in Pune.

The bench also noted in its order that the said FIR had been registered against Shukla after a considerable delay.

It took note of Shukla's counsel and senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani that though the alleged incident of illegal phone tapping had taken place over three years ago, the Pune police's FIR was registered against Shukla only on February 25 this year.

Jethmalani further said that while several other officers of the Maharashtra police had been involved in obtaining the sanction for putting certain phone numbers under surveillance, the FIR had been registered only against Shukla.

The Maharashtra government's counsel Y P Yagnik, however, opposed Shukla's request for interim protection from arrest. He further sought some time to file a reply to her plea saying that a copy of the petition had been served to him only on Thursday.