In a jolt to the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court ordered a preliminary enquiry into the allegations made by Mumbai Police’s ex-chief Param Bir Singh against state home minister Anil Deshmukh.
Singh – an IPS officer of the 1988 batch who was shunted out as commissioner of police of Mumbai and made the commandant general of Home Guards – has alleged that Deshmukh fixed a Rs 100-crore collection target for suspended assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze.
Vaze (49), who was heading the Crime Intelligence Unit if Mumbai Police Crime Branch-CID is allegedly involved in parking a Scorpio laden with 20-odd gelatin sticks and a threatening letter near Antilia, the residence of India's top business Mukesh Ambani and the mysterious murder of SUV owner Mansukh Hiren
Deshmukh (70), a senior politician from Vidarbha, is a loyalist of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and a confidante of party’s general secretary Praful Patel.
Singh has filed a criminal PIL in the Bombay High Court.
The bench comprising chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice GS Kulkarni – that heard a bunch of petitions last week - ordered the Director of CBI to conduct a preliminary inquiry in accordance with law and conclude it within 15 days.
Once the preliminary inquiry is complete, the director CBI is at discretion to decide on further course of action, the court said.
Further details of the order are awaited.
“It is a welcome development,” said BJP leader Atul Bhatkalkar. He said that it is high time that Deshmukh tendered his resignation.
It may be recalled that amid call for resignation of Deshmukh by opposition BJP, the Uddhav Thackeray-led government appointed a high-level inquiry committee headed by justice Kailash Chandiwal, a one-man probe panel headed by former judge of Bombay High Court.
The BJP, however, has said that the probe was not instituted under Commission of Inquiry Act and would serve no purpose.
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