Rashmi Shukla report leak: Case closed, as CBI could not establish who, when, from where it was obtained

MUMBAI: The Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court has closed the case pertaining to the leaking of IPS officer Rashmi Shukla’s confidential report about corruption in police postings and transfers. The court closed the case as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) failed to establish as to “from where, by whom and when the documents in question were handed over to Shri Devendra Fadnavis”.

“After investigation, the investigating officer found that the sections applied are not attracted,” said Jaywant Yadav, additional chief metropolitan magistrate Jaywant Yadav, in his detailed order passed on August 21, 2023, a copy of which became available on Friday.

While bringing down curtain on the contentious case of politician-police nexus, the court noted, “It (CBI) could not establish as to from where, by whom and when the documents in question (were) handed over to Shri Devendra Fadnavis, the then LOP (Leader of Opposition), Maharashtra.”

The magistrate court also noted the CBI had found that the standalone computer used by the State Intelligence Department or SID was infected with a virus, like Trojan Malware, leading to the possibility of hacking sensitive data from system.

“Thus, there was possibility of taking out documents/data from interception cell of the SID, Maharashtra,” the court said.

The court concluded that from the CBI report, it became clear that “some unknown persons committed theft of confidential official records, forged letters/documents by inserting new contents than that of original, downloaded the computer data illegally.”

The magistrate court on August 21 accepted the A-summary report (an investigation report indicating that the facts are true but there is no prosecutable evidence to put the person on trial) submitted by the CBI on May 22, 2023, seeking closure of the case registered by the Mumbai cyber cell under the Official Secrets Act.

When Shukla was the State Intelligence Department (SID) commissioner, she prepared a report in August 2020, naming two senior politicians — the then home minister and another person known as “Dada”, and six IPS officers and 23 state service police officers.

Her report also named some private individuals who acted as middlemen to facilitate transfers and secure desired postings for senior police officers in exchange for money and by using their close connection with the two politicians.

At a press conference on March 23, 2021, Fadnavis, who was the leader of opposition then, presented a few documents and referred to Shukla’s report to support his allegations that there was rampant corruption in transfers and postings of police officers in Maharashtra.

He claimed that the state government did not act on Shukla’s report, and therefore, he was going to hand over the entire material, including a pen drive containing the report, to the union ministry of home affairs.

Three days later, on March 26, the Mumbai cyber cell registered an FIR, based on a complaint filed by an assistant commissioner at SID, against unknown persons for leaking the report.

Police officials claimed that Shukla, presently posted at Hyderabad as additional director general of the Central Reserve Police Force, south zone, had copied the report on three pen drives.

While two pen drives were recovered by the cyber cell, the police suspected that the third one — an office copy of SID — was purportedly sent by her to Fadnavis, who in turn passed it on to the union home secretary.

It is worth mentioning that then chief secretary Sitaram Kunte submitted a report to then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, detailing the circumstances in which Shukla had intercepted the calls of six people in the name of “public safety” and thus “misguided the authorities”.

He further said that no transfers of police officers had taken place between June 27, 2020, and September 1, 2020, during which Shukla intercepted the telephone calls and based on which she prepared the report.

A month after the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government came to power in July 2022, the state handed over the case to the CBI. The agency probed the matter and in May 2023 filed an A-summary report, seeking closure of the case.