The state government informed a magistrate court on Friday that Devendra Fadnavis will be its star witness in the phone tapping case involving IPS officer Rashmi Shukla.
Ajay Misar, appearing for the State, said the court was informed that the investigating agency has written a letter to Fadnavis to record his statement and he has responded positively. “He will be our star witness,” Misar said, the court had been told.
An FIR was registered by the cyber police to probe the leak of crucial information by the State Intelligence Department (SID) related to corruption in police transfers and postings. Shukla, who was heading the department, had allegedly tapped phones to expose the corruption.
In a press conference, Fadnavis had stated that he had given evidence in the ‘Maharashtra police transfer racket’ to the union home secretary and had demanded a CBI probe into it. The state is seeking a pen drive and documents it suspects Fadnavis had given to the home secretary. The submission regarding Fadnavis was made during a hearing on the plea, on which the court is likely to pass its order on December 28.
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The court was further informed that it had sent four reminders to the home secretary, but had not received any response.
In March this year, while addressing a press conference, Fadnavis had produced a pendrive containing purported conversations between senior officials and private persons discussing the transfers; he had also produced a letter purportedly written by the Rashmi Shukla to the then Director General of Police Subodh Jaiswal about the alleged corruption in transfers of police officers. Following the press conference, Fadnavis had submitted the pendrive carrying 6gb data and the letter to Minstry of Home Affairs (MHA) for further action.
In October the cyber cell approached the court seeking the custody of the pendrive and the letter from MHA. The crime branch said that, during the course of investigation they have recovered two pen drives along with certain documents and they wanted to match it with the evidences submitted by the opposition leader. The advocate representing MHA called the application vague and said the application is premature without identification of documents. Following the argument the court kept the material for order on December 28.
Days after the press conference, an offence was registered at Cyber police station in BKC stating confidential property had been stolen from State Intelligence Office (SID).
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