The Mumbai Police on Saturday filed a chargesheet against the city’s former police commissioner Param Bir Singh in an extortion case, Live Law reported. The chargesheet also named dismissed police officer Sachin Vaze and two others, according to PTI.
The case is based on a complaint filed by a businessman, who alleged that the accused persons had extorted Rs 9 lakh from him for sparing his two bars in Mumbai’s Goregaon area from raids. The man had also accused Singh and Vaze of forcing him to buy them two smartphones worth over Rs 2 lakh.
The former Mumbai Police chief is facing five cases of extortion, according to The Times of India. The Goregaon case is the first in which a chargesheet has been filed.
The Supreme Court has granted Singh interim protection that will end on Monday.
The chargesheet filed against the four accused persons runs into 400 pages, Special Public Prosecutor Shekhar Jagtap said, according to ANI. “Singh and Vaze will be served a copy each on the next date of the case,” he added.
Singh, who was serving as the director-general of the Maharashtra Home Guard, had been suspended from service by the government on Thursday. He had not shown up to duty for the last six months.
The former police officer had gone missing in October, following which he was declared a proclaimed offender. He reappeared last week to be questioned by Crime Branch officers in the Goregaon extortion case.
Singh is the officer who had accused former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh of extorting money from bars and restaurants in Mumbai. He alleged in March that Deshmukh had asked Vaze to collect Rs 100 crore every month through illegal channels.
Deshmukh resigned from the Maharashtra Cabinet because of the accusations. In April, the Central Bureau of Investigation had filed a case against him based on Singh’s claims.
In June, the Enforcement Directorate initiated a money laundering case against the Nationalist Congress Party leader based on the chargesheet filed by CBI. He is currently in judicial custody.
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