Rashmi Shukla becomes first woman DGP of Maharashtra

Shukla faced charges in the first FIR in Mumbai for tapping the phones of Shiv Sena Uddhav Thackeray faction leader Sanjay Raut and Eknath Khadse, a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). In the second FIR in Pune, she was alleged to have tapped the phones of Nana Patole, a Congress leader

Senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla was appointed as Maharashtra's new Director General of Police (DGP) on January 4. The state home department issued an order to this effect. The state home department issued an order to this effect.

Shukla, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the 1988 batch, was posted as director general of the Sashastra Seema Bal on deputation.

Mumbai Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar was holding additional charge as DGP Maharashtra after earlier DGP Rajnish Seth retired on December 31.

The decision to appoint Shukla as the top cop came more than three months after the Bombay High Court quashed two phone-tapping cases registered against the IPS officer.

Shukla faced charges in the first FIR in Mumbai for tapping the phones of Shiv Sena Uddhav Thackeray faction leader Sanjay Raut and Eknath Khadse, a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). In the second FIR in Pune, she was alleged to have tapped the phones of Nana Patole, a Congress leader.

During the earlier BJP-Shiv Sena alliance government led by Devendra Fadnavis between 2014-19, Shukla held several important posts, including Commissioner of Police in Pune and Commissioner of State Intelligence Department (SID).

After the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government came to power, three separate cases were registered against her in Pune and Mumbai for allegedly illegally tapping the phones of state Congress chief Nana Patole, NCP leader Eknath Khadse and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut. The tapping took place when she was Pune police commissioner and later headed the SID, it was alleged. Recently, Pune police submitted a closure report in the court stating that there was no evidence.