Former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh on Thursday filed a PIL in Bombay High Court seeking a CBI probe against Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh, who he claimed had asked police officer Sachin Waze to collect Rs 100 crore from bars and restaurants.
The PIL also raised the issue of alleged corruption in police transfers and postings in the state.
The IPS officer had earlier this week approached the Supreme Court, which on Wednesday termed the matter “quite serious” but asked him to approach the high court.
The criminal public interest litigation reiterated the allegations Singh had made earlier and sought an “immediate, unbiased, impartial” probe by the CBI against Deshmukh, an NCP leader.
Singh sought a high court direction to the CBI to secure CCTV footage from Deshmukh’s residence from earlier this year before it is “destroyed,” and to the state government to produce all records of communication received from IPS officer Rashmi Shukla in March 2020.
In February last year Shukla had levelled allegations of malpractices in police postings and transfers against Deshmukh and also informed her superiors about it, but was transferred soon afterwards, alleged the PIL.
The court should pass directions to ensure that in future police officers are not transferred on account of “pecuniary benefits to any politician”, Singh’s petition said.
The PIL is likely to be taken up for hearing by a bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta next week.
The Opposition BJP earlier this week alleged that Shukla, when she was state intelligence commissioner, had intercepted phone calls and gathered evidence of corruption in police transfers.
The PIL claimed that last month Deshmukh had asked some police officers, including Waze, to collect Rs 100 crore every month, including Rs 40-50 crore from around 1,750 bars and restaurants in Mumbai. Waze has been arrested in connection with the retrieval of explosives from a car near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence.
Singh had first made the allegations against Deshmukh in a letter to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray. Deshmukh has denied the allegations.
The PIL also alleged that Deshmukh had interfered in investigations and pressurised him to implicate BJP leaders in connection with the alleged suicide of Dadra and Nagar Haveli MP Mohan Delkar.
The former Mumbai police commissioner accused Deshmukh of indulging in “corrupt malpractices” in transfers and postings of police officers.
Singh apprised Thackeray of these allegations, but “immediately thereafter, on March 17”, was shunted out to the home guards department without allowing him to complete the “minimum fixed tenure of two years”, he said.
Later, Deshmukh had said in an interview that Singh’s colleagues had made serious lapses in the investigation of the recovery of the explosives-laden vehicle near Ambani’s residence.
