Rashmi Shukla, a 1988-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, was appointed as Maharastra's next director general of police (DGP) on January 4, becoming the first woman cop to take over the reins of the state police force.
Shukla will succeed Rajnish Seth, who retired on Sunday and took charge as the chairman of the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC). Mumbai police commissioner Vivek Phansalkar was holding the additional charge as DGP Maharashtra after Seth retired.
Before being appointed as the DGP, Shukla served as the director of the Sashastra Seema Bal, the central police force deployed along the border with Nepal.
The senior police officer was also the Pune police commissioner and headed the State Intelligence Department (SID) when the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government was in power.
According to reports, Shukla will turn 60 in June this year, but is expected to get a two-year term.
Her tenure as the head of the SID was mired in controversy after the opposition leaders alleged that their phones were being tapped by the Devendra Fadnavis-led government between 2014 and 2019. FIRs were also registered against her when the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi came to power.
Shukla was then transferred to Civil Defence, seen as a non-executive post, in 2020 by the Thackeray government due to her perceived close relations with the BJP.
In September 2023, the Bombay High Court quashed two of the three FIRs – in Pune and Mumbai – registered against her. After the Eknath Shinde-Fadnavis government came to power in Maharashtra, the third case was transferred to the CBI.
But this case also got closed last month after the high court allowed the CBI’s closure report, paving the way for her return to the state