The high court also dismissed the petition seeking quashing of summons issued by the CBI against ex-state chief secretary Sitaram Kunte and incumbent DGP Sanjay Pandey in connection with the case.
Former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh. Photo: PTI
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Wednesday suffered a double setback in the Bombay high court which dismissed its petition for forming a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the corruption case against former home minister Anil Deshmukh on the ground that CBI’s investigation was not impartial. The high court also dismissed the petition seeking quashing of summons issued by the agency against ex-state chief secretary Sitaram Kunte and incumbent DGP Sanjay Pandey in connection with the case.
A bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and S.V. Kotwal passed scathing comments against the Maharashtra government’s conduct through the entire Anil Deshmukh-Param Bir Singh episode in its judgment.
The bench even went on to say that it found merit in the CBI’s submission that the state government’s plea was an attempt to scuttle the ongoing probe against Deshmukh.
The CBI is conducting a probe into allegations of misconduct and corruption made against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Deshmukh earlier this year by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
Though the Maharashtra government had maintained that its opposition was not to the probe itself but only the manner in which it was being conducted by the CBI, the high court refused to accept the argument.
The bench noted that when Singh first raised the issue of misconduct by Deshmukh, the state government did not initiate any inquiry.
The state government did not even register an FIR when lawyer Jaishree Patil filed a complaint against both Deshmukh and Singh at the Malabar Hill police station in Mumbai, the high court noted.
It was on Patil’s complaint that another bench of the high court had directed the CBI to conduct a preliminary inquiry against Deshmukh, who was arrested by the ED and currently in judicial custody.
“In conclusion, we find merit in the charge of the respondent CBI that this petition is nothing but an extension of the stand of the petitioner (State of Maharashtra) to scuttle investigation,” the high court said.
“Considering the manner in which the petitioner has conducted itself in relation to this FIR and the way in which the petition is presented assuming locus, we are not satisfied that the prayer of the petitioner for recalling investigation from the respondent CBI to itself is bonafide,” it said.
The high court, however, added that its observations on the state government’s conduct were not in general but only as a litigating party in the present case.
The bench also dismissed the state’s argument that the present CBI director Subodh Jaiswal should not head the central agency’s ongoing probe only because he was the DGP of Maharashtra when Deshmukh was home minister.
The high court said the Maharashtra government’s apprehension regarding Jaiswal was “not reasonable but merely, a created one.”
The bench also rejected the state’s argument that summons had been issued to Kunte and Pandey by the CBI as a harassment tactic.
It noted that the CBI’s submission that the duo had been summoned merely for questioning and that the summons had nothing to do with Jaiswal heading the CBI, seemed correct.
“Tying these facets with the petitioner’s (Maharashtra government’s) conduct noted earlier, it appears to us that this submission of the petitioner based on the role of respondent no. 2 (Jaiswal) is only an attempt by the petitioner to take the investigation somehow away from the respondent CBI so that it does not proceed,” the high court said.
The high court also said that the state government’s prayer for constituting an SIT would mean taking the probe away from the CBI, an independent agency, and leaving it in effect, under the state’s control. The same would defeat the purpose of the high court’s April 5 order.
The high court further said that if there was any truth in the allegations that Deshmukh had misused his position as a state minister to interfere into the transfers and postings of police officers, the CBI probe would prove to be in the interest of the Maharashtra government and its police force.
“There is no substance in the contention of the petitioner that the respondent CBI is disentitled to carry out the investigation in the matter,” the high court said.
“No case is made out for withdrawing the investigation from the respondent CBI and entrusting it to the special investigation team as prayed for,” it added.
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(With input from news agency language)
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