Mumbai: The Bombay High Court said Tuesday it would hear Wednesday the PIL filed by former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh. He is seeking a CBI probe against Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh. He has claimed that Anil Deshmukh asked police officer Sachin Vaze to collect Rs 100 crore from bars and restaurants. Singh filed the criminal Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the high court, March 25.
In his plea, Singh claimed Deshmukh had asked police officers, including suspended assistant police inspector Vaze to collect Rs 100 crore each month from bars and restaurants. Incidentally, Vaze has been arrested by the NIA in the case of bomb scare near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence here. The PIL also raised the issue of alleged corruption in police transfers and postings in the state.
Senior counsel Vikram Nankani, appeared for Singh in the court Tuesday. He mentioned the petition before a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni and sought urgent hearing. Chief Justice Datta asked Nankani about the prayers sought in the petition and if the PIL is maintainable.
Also read: Quite serious: SC on issues raised by Param Bir Singh in plea against Anil Deshmukh
Nankani said the main prayer sought in the petition is for a CBI probe into the serious allegations levelled by a senior IPS officer against a Maharashtra minister. “We will satisfy the court with arguments on the maintainability of the petition,” Nankani said. The HC then posted the PIL for hearing on Wednesday.
Singh had initially approached the Supreme Court. He had alleged he was transferred from the post of Commissioner Police of Mumbai March 17 and shunted to the Home Guards department after he complained to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and other senior leaders about the ‘corrupt malpractices’ of Deshmukh. The apex court had termed the matter as quite serious, but asked Singh to approach the high court.
Singh then filed the PIL in the HC. He reiterated his allegations against Deshmukh and sought an ‘immediate, unbiased, impartial’ probe by the CBI against Deshmukh, who is an NCP leader.
Singh also sought a direction from the HC to the CBI to secure CCTV footage of Deshmukh’s residence from earlier this year before it was ‘destroyed’, and a direction to the state government to produce all records of communication received from IPS officer Rashmi Shukla in March 2020.
In February last year, Shukla levelled allegations of malpractices in police postings and transfers against Deshmukh and also informed her superiors about it, but soon afterwards she was transferred, the PIL alleged.
