NEW DELHI, March 22: Former Mumbai Commissioner of Police Param Bir Singh moved the Supreme Court on Monday seeking direction for immediate “unbiased, uninfluenced, impartial and fair” CBI probe into alleged corrupt malpractices of Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh.
Singh, a 1988 batch IPS officer, also sought quashing of the order transferring him from the post of Mumbai CP alleging it to be arbitrary and illegal.
As an interim relief, Singh sought stay of the operation of his transfer order and direction to the State government, the Centre and the CBI to immediately take in its custody the CCTV footage from the residence of Deshmukh.
The petitioner has invoked writ jurisdiction of this court to seek unbiased, uninfluenced, impartial and fair investigation into the corrupt malpractices of Anil Deshmukh, the Home Minister of Government of Maharashtra, before the evidences are destroyed, he said in his plea.
Deshmukh had been holding meetings in February, 2021 at his residence with police officers, including Sachin Vaze of Crime Intelligence Unit, Mumbai and Sanjay Patil, ACP Social Service Branch, Mumbai, bypassing their seniors and had instructed them that he had a target to accumulate Rs 100 crore every month and had directed to collect money from various establishments and other sources, Singh alleged.
He said it is reliably learnt that on or about August 24-25, 2020, one Rashmi Shukla, Commissioner Intelligence, State Intelligence Department, had brought to the notice of the Director General of Police, who in turn brought it to the knowledge of the State’s Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department, about corrupt malpractices in postings/transfers by Deshmukh based on telephonic interception. She was shunted out rather than taking any firm action against Anil Deshmukh, he said.
Such act of Deshmukh in abuse of the official position of the Home Minister, whether in calling and directly instructing the police officers of lower rank such as Vaze or Patil for his malicious intent of extorting money from establishments across Mumbai and from other sources or whether in interfering in the investigations and directing the same to be conducted in a particular manner, or whether indulging in corrupt malpractices in posting /transfers of officers, cannot be countenanced or justified in any democratic State, he said.
Singh said that fair CBI investigation is thus warranted in each of such acts of Deshmukh in abuse of the official position of the Home Minister and added that he has brought the corrupt practices in the knowledge of the senior leaders and the Chief Minister of the State immediately.
He said that thereafter, on March 17, by a notification of the Maharashtra government he was transferred from the post of the Police Commissioner of Mumbai to the Home Guard department in an arbitrary and illegal manner without the completion of the minimum fixed tenure of two years.
The said transfer was maliciously effected purportedly under Section 22 N(2) of the Maharashtra Police Act, 1951 with the reason that the transfer was necessitated by administrative exigencies, he said in his plea. – PTI
