The Bombay High Court on Monday gave former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh protection from arrest after inspector Bhimrao Ghadge filed a complaint, accusing him of corruption between 2015 and 2018, ANI reported. The court heard Singh’s petition to quash the first information report filed against him.
The police have registered the FIR against Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police Parag Manere and 26 other officials in the case. The complainant said he was posted in the Thane Police Commissionerate during this period, when Singh had asked him to not chargesheet certain individuals against whom FIRs were filed. Ghadge claimed that five FIRs were registered against him and he was suspended after he refused to follow Singh’s orders. He also alleged that several police officials had indulged in various acts of corruption.
A total of 27 sections, including criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and under the provisions of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities Act), 1989, have been applied against those accused in the case. Ghadge had also filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Maharashtra before the FIR was filed.
Singh alleged that the Maharashtra government was harassing him with multiple cases because he had accused former state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh of corruption.
He had also approached the Supreme Court last week, asking it to shift all the enquiries against him to a different state, according to PTI.
Meanwhile, during the Bombay High Court hearing on Monday, the Maharashtra government’s counsel Darius Khambata said Singh cannot seek relief from both the Supreme Court and the high court for the same case.
The Bombay High Court, then, directed Singh not to ask the Supreme Court for relief and set June 9 as the next date of hearing.
The Maharashtra government assured that court that it won’t arrest Singh till June 9 if he cooperates with the investigation in the case, according to PTI.
Another controversy
On March 20, Singh had accused Deshmukh of extorting money from bars, restaurants and hookah parlours in Mumbai. In a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, the former police chief wrote that suspended Crime Branch officer Sachin Vaze told him that the minister had asked him to collect Rs 100 crore every month through illegal channels.
Vaze was suspended and sent into the custody of the National Investigation Agency for his alleged role in placing the explosives-laden vehicle at Carmichael Road, near the residence of industrialist Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai, on March 15. Two days later, Singh, who was handling the investigation, was transferred from his position to the low-key Home Guard department by the state government. Singh had made the allegations after his transfer.
Though Deshmukh has constantly denied any impropriety, he resigned from the state Cabinet on April 5 after the Bombay High Court directed the CBI to conduct a preliminary inquiry into allegations against him. On April 8, the Supreme Court had dismissed the Maharashtra government and Deshmukh’s petitions to cancel the CBI inquiry against him.
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