New Delhi: Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh has unleashed a barrage of allegations against Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in a petition in the Supreme Court, accusing him of adopting corrupt practices in posting or transfer of police officers to implicating BJP leaders in MP Mohan Delkar’s suicide.
The petition said February 22, Member of Parliament Mohan Delkar was found dead in his Mumbai hotel room, leaving behind a 15-page suicide note. Singh said that after initial inquiries and report, he initiated investigation in the matter and sought advice from the Police Department’s Legal Cell.
“The petitioner was time and again pressurised by the Minister for Home, Government of Maharashtra to probe the role of certain leaders of BJP and somehow implicate them. It is submitted that there was tremendous pressure to give the entire episode a political angle. The petitioner however did not succumb to the pressure,” he said in the petition.
He further accused Deshmukh of adopting corrupt practices in posting or transfers in police in addition with extortion of Rs 100 crore per month from various establishments.
Singh claimed that last August, Rashmi Shukla, Commissioner Intelligence, State Intelligence Department, through telephonic interceptions, brought out information about corrupt malpractices in postings or transfers adopted by Deshmukh. She brought it to the notice of Director General of Police, who in turn brought it to the knowledge of the Additional Chief Secretary, Home. However, Shukla was shunted out, instead of any firm action against Deshmukh being taken.
Singh said around mid-March, he had pointed out to the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and other senior leaders about the several misdeeds and malpractices carried out by the Home Minister. He said that the wrote a letter on March 20 to the Chief Minister.
“The petitioner thus apprised the Chief Minister of the true picture for consideration and corrective action, being fully cognizant to the retaliation that is likely against the petitioner for placing the true picture on record,” said the petition. Later, he was transferred to from the post of the Police Commissioner of Mumbai to the Home Guard Department in an arbitrary and illegal manner without the completion of the minimum fixed tenure of two years.
He added that his transfer was a political move with oblique purposes and sinister motives. “It is submitted that the petitioner was leading various important investigations and was at the cusp of unearthing startling discoveries,” he claimed in the petition.
Singh urged the Supreme Court to direct a fair CBI investigation into the acts of Deshmukh in abuse of his official position.
“The Government of Maharashtra has withdrawn the consent for investigations of offences by the CBI in the State of Maharashtra. Therefore, unless directions are issued by this court, there seems no possibility of unbiased, uninfluenced, impartial and fair investigation by the CBI in the corrupt malpractices of Anil Deshmukh, the Home Minister of Government of Maharashtra, before the evidence are destroyed,” his plea added.