When the Central government last Thursday announced the appointment of 1989-batch IPS officer Rashmi Shukla as the Director General (DG) of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the armed force deployed to guard the border along Nepal and Bhutan, it was perceived by many as a setback, even if temporary, for the officer who at one point not too long ago was considered to be a shoo-in for the Mumbai Police Commissioner’s job.
Shukla was among a handful of officers relegated to the sidelines after the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) came to power in the state in November 2019 because of the perception that they were favoured by former CM Devendra Fadnavis, who is the incumbent Deputy CM. Several of these officers went on central deputation, including Shukla, who was posted as the Additional Director General (ADG), CRPF, in February 2021.
However, in the case of Shukla, apart from being transferred by the MVA from the State Intelligence Department (SID) to Civil Defence – seen as a non-executive post – there were two FIRs. The FIRs, one in Mumbai and the other in Punewere filed on the charges of illegal phone tapping of Opposition leaders during the CM tenure of Fadnavis. Among the leaders whose phones were allegedly tapped are Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Eknath Khadse, and Congress chief Nana Patole.
During the MVA government in Maharashtra, a team from the Mumbai Police also went to Hyderabad to record Shukla’s statement. She then approached the courts.
The fortunes of Shukla and the other IPS officers sidelined by the MVA seemed to have changed for the better after the Uddhav Thackeray-led government fell last June.
Within a few months, there was a perception that officers who had to suffer during the MVA government because of their perceived proximity to Fadnavis would be “compensated”. Soon there was a strong buzz that Shukla was being brought back from central deputation and would be “rewarded” with the post of Mumbai Police Commissioner.
What further boosted the rumours is that in October, the Pune Police filed a closure report in a local court in one of the FIRs. Later that month, the state government denied Mumbai Police permission to file a chargesheet against Shukla in the phone-tapping case.
With the accusations seemingly out of the way, it appeared that Shukla getting some important post in the state was on the cards. Weeks passed by but nothing happened, even as some of the other sidelined officers were brought back to important postings.
Eventually, in a blow to the officer in December, a Pune court rejected the police’s closure report in the FIR against her and instead asked the police to further investigate the matter.
Many believed that the court order sealed Shukla’s fate as far as her being brought back from central deputation to the city in the immediate future was concerned since it would not be good optics for the government to appoint someone facing an FIR to an important position. Recently, after Shukla and two other officers from the Maharashtra cadre were promoted to Director General, Shukla was posted with the SSB.
A government official said, “Shukla retires in June 2024, so she still has more than a year of her service left. While the door may be shut temporarily, she can still be called back to the state anytime in the future and given some important posting, if the powers that be decide to do so.”