“Param Satya” seems to be the oft-used expression at the state-appointed one-member high level inquiry committee hearings headed by Justice (retd.) Kailash Chandiwal, dealing with the corruption allegations against former state home minister Anil Deshmukh. However, this ‘satya’ seems to be changing for suspended cop Sachin Vaze, who has been changing his versions but is not being allowed to retract his testimony before the Chandiwal Commission.
Notably, Vaze has been singing like a canary during his examination before the Chandiwal Commission. In December 2021, Vaze told the panel that Deshmukh, his associates, or people related to him, never made any monetary demand, nor did they instruct him to extort Rs 100 crore from city’s bar owners.
However, a month after this ‘satya’, the controversial officer urged the Commission to allow him to retract his initial version.
Vaze then filed an application through his advocate Rounak Naik, claiming that all that he deposed earlier was done “under the continuous threats being extended by Deshmukh”. He claimed in his application, “I am typically a victim of Stockholm Syndrome at the hands of Deshmukh, who even today holds tremendous power and clout over me, my life, my future and circumstances surrounding me. In fact, I was meted out continuous severe mental torture and harassment at the hands of Deshmukh while in custody, and it has continued even after his resignation.”
Vaze pointed out specific questions on which he was pressured to “lie” before the panel: When asked if there was any occasion he had to make any payments to the then home minister, Deshmukh, he had said “no” in December, but now claims it should have been a “yes”.
When asked if Deshmukh, his staff or people related to him demanded money from him, he declined, only to later change his answer to affirmative. Similarly, he changed his stance on the question of being asked by Deshmukh to demand money from restaurants and bars from “no” to “yes”. Therefore, he had first said “yes” that there was no occasion to offer money to Deshmukh or his staff, but later changed that answer, too.
“No, I handed over the money to the people associated with Deshmukh, on his instructions,” he said later.
However, Justice Chandiwal would have none of it. The judge, at the outset, refused to entertain such an application and dismissed it as it was made after a month. The judge had, in a strongly worded order, said that this plea by Vaze was “a calculated move to shield somebody else in the matter”.
“Vaze did not retract, nor made any gesture showing that he was under turmoil or tremendous pressure of somebody, or political clout held by other witnesses. The truth has been oscillating at the whims of Vaze, who cannot be branded to be on steroids,” Justice Chandiwal had said while turning down Vaze’s plea.
