Won't arrest Param Bir Singh till June 9, Maha govt tells HC

The Maharashtra government on Monday told the Bombay High Court bench of Justices Sambhaji Shinde and Nitin Borkar that it wouldn't arrest Param Bir Singh, former Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, in the alleged SC ST case lodged against him by a Thanebased police officer, till June 9. The bench also pulled up Singh for making a "false" statement before the Supreme Court that the HC isn't hearing his pleas.

The bench would hear the final arguments in the matter on June 9.

On Monday, when the matter was called out, senior counsel Mahesh Jethmalani appeared for Param Bir Singh seeking an adjournment on the ground that one bench alone should hear cases pertaining to his client Singh along with the petition filed by IPS Rashmi Shukla and also the plea filed by the state government against the CBI seeking to quash certain parts of its FIR lodged against former home minister Anil Deshmukh. He said all the three matters are connected and thus must be heard together.

Meanwhile, senior counsel Darius Khambatta for the state pointed out that the three matters weren't connected at all.

To buttress his case, Jethmalani told the judges that his client was being targeted by filing multiple cases only because of the letter he wrote to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray highlighting the corrupt practices of the then home minister.

"The plea is about continuous harassment meted out to my client.. it is a continuous case of vendetta... Ever since he wrote the letter (to CM) the state government is embarrassed.... My client being subjected to harassment," Jethmalani submitted.

The senior counsel further said that the present FIR is lodged by one Bhimrao Ghadge, a police officer from Thane police, regarding incidents that allegedly occurred in 2015-16. The FIR is filed now in 2021 only because of that letter.