Mumbai: The Eknath Shinde government in Maharashtra has issued an order directing the state police to transfer the investigation of a case related to the leakage of sensitive call recordings from the state intelligence department (SID) to the CBI. The Mumbai Police had recorded the statement of Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis during the investigation of the case. Another case in which BJP leader Girish Mahajan and 28 others were booked for extortion and criminal conspiracy has also been handed over to the CBI. Sources in the DGP's office have given information in this regard on Friday.

The Mumbai Police registered an FIR against unidentified persons under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) in March 2021. A few days later, the then leader of the opposition Devendra Fadnavis had alleged that lobbying was done by IPS officers for plum postings in exchange for money with leaders in the then Maha Vikas Aghadi government. At that time, Devendra Fadnavis had said that he had 6.3 GB of data from the call records obtained from the phone tapping allegedly done by the then SID commissioner Rashmi Shukla, in which the names of several senior police officers were discussed. The alleged offence was committed in the period from January 2018 to the time of registration of the case.

The FIR was registered on the basis of a complaint filed by advocate Vijay Patil, who is one of the directors of 'District Maratha Vidya Prasar Sahkari Samaj', a cooperative educational institution in Jalgaon. In December 2020, a case was registered at Nimbhora police station in Jalgaon and Kothrud police station in Pune was given the responsibility of investigation. According to the FIR, Vijay Patil was threatened and asked to resign under a criminal conspiracy by all the accused. Vijay Patil had alleged that during his visit to Pune in 2018, he was forcibly taken to a flat in the Sadashiv Peth area, locked up there and demanded money from him. He was also threatened with being implicated in a false case. Vijay Patil had also levelled allegations of forgery by some suspects to gain control of the Jalgaon-based institute.

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