Two days after he secured bail in a money laundering case of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), NCP leader Anil Deshmukh on Thursday approached a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court for bail in the corruption case against him by the CBI, the only other case in which he is still in custody preventing his release.
In his bail plea, the 73-year-old former state home minister said that the case of the CBI is based on the statement of former city police commissioner Param Bir Singh and Sachin Vaze - ‘a tainted cop’, with many criminal cases against him including those of murder and extortion. It also pointed out that Vaze had remained in suspension for many years, reinstated and accorded a status of a blue-eyed boy by Singh. “Both of them have acted in cahoots with each other… in order to save their own skin as well as to pass the buck on to the Applicant..” it alleged.
The plea filed through advocates Aniket Nikam and Inderpal Singh also detailed the contradictory statements made by Vaze in his deposition as a witness before the state-appointed judicial Chandiwal Commission as opposed to that given to the CBI. It also detailed how in the statements of bar owners from whom money was allegedly illegally collected as per the CBI’s case, the bar owners have mentioned that they were told Vaze was collecting it for No. 1, which in common parlance meant the commissioner of police, Mumbai. Deshmukh said it is not him, but for Singh that the money was being collected.
He said the CBI, which claims to be a premier agency has conducted itself in a partisan and lopsided manner and the probe exposes it to be a mere pawn in the hands of vested interests. He pointed out that it has proceeded and got the main accused Vaze declared as an approver which demonstrates that there is absolutely no substance in the case. “To sensationalize the matter and somehow continue the harassment and persecution of the applicant, the evidence is being fabricated,” the plea stated.
The politician, now in Arthur road jail, said in his application that in the course of his political career, he has become an eyesore for vested interests. He urged that the court rely on the HC’s observations and inferences drawn while granting him bail and to grant him bail in the present case too.
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