The Supreme Court qualified the matter as serious but asked Param Bir Singh to address the High Court.
Reflexes
- Param Bir Singh faced tough questions today in Bombay High Court
- Your petition seeking a CBI investigation against Anil Deshmukh was heard
- He had accused the Maharashtra Interior Minister Anil Deshmukh of corruption.
Bombay:
Former Mumbai Police Chief Param Bir Singh faced tough questions today when the Bombay High Court heard his request for a CBI investigation against Maharashtra Interior Minister Anil Deshmukh. He was repeatedly asked why no FIR had been filed on his accusations against the minister.
“You are a police commissioner, why should the law be repealed for you? Are police officers, ministers and politicians all above the law? Are you saying you are above the law?” Bombay High Court Chief Justice CJ Dutta said in stern remarks during arguments.
Param Bir Singh, who was recently replaced as Mumbai police chief and transferred to the Interior Guards, has alleged in a letter to Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray that Anil Deshmukh had asked the arrested police officer Sachin Waze to collect 100 million rupees per month from bars and restaurants. . That is the basis of your request.
“These are hard facts coming from the person who held the highest position in the city’s police force and from someone who has served for more than 30 years,” Singh told the High Court.
“There has to be an FIR to investigate. Who prevents you from filing an FIR? The prima facie observation is that there can be no investigation without an FIR,” the court responded.
“You are asking that the instructions for the investigation be delivered to the CBI. Where is the FIR and the investigation so that it can be delivered to the CBI?”
The “prima facie” petition is unfounded, the court said, adding: “Without an FIR, where is the scope for us to exercise our jurisdiction?”
When Mr. Singh argued that “even a simple letter to my lords” can become a PIL (public interest litigation), the court responded: “You are a police officer. the obligation to file an FIR. Why didn’t you do it? You are in breach of your duty if you don’t file an FIR when you know an offense has been committed. It is not enough to write letters to the Chief Minister. ” If any citizen discovers that a crime is being committed, they have the obligation to present an FIR “.
The FIR, the Superior Court said, was “fundamental” and without one there could be no investigation.
“Can you show us from the complaint first-hand that the Home Secretary said this in his presence,” the court asked Mr. Singh.
“Is there an affidavit from the officers that the Minister of the Interior has told me this?”
To which, the former police chief said that he had discussed the issue with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Senior Deputy Minister Ajit Pawar and the head of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Sharad Pawar. “I have mentioned the perpetrators of the crime. My pleas have not been heeded. I have nowhere else to go,” he said.
The court has not yet issued the order and arguments are underway.
In an explosive letter to the Chief Minister, Singh had alleged that Deshmukh had asked police officers, including Sachin Waze, arrested by the National Investigation Agency in the case of a van containing explosives parked near the home of industrialist Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai, which collects 100 million rupees every month in bars and restaurants. The petition also charged Mr. Deshmukh with alleged corruption in transfers and police posts.
Deshmukh has denied the allegations, which have sparked a rift between ruling coalition partners Shiv Sena and NCP.
Mr. Singh had initially approached the Supreme Court, claiming that he had been removed from office after he complained to Uddhav Thackeray and other senior leaders about the “corrupt malpractices” of the state interior minister.
The Supreme Court called it a “serious case” but asked Mr. Singh to address the High Court.
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