No HC relief for Deshmukh; Shukla gets protection from arrest

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Thursday heard a clutch of petitions including one filed by former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh seeking interim protection from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which recently completed a preliminary enquiry (PE) on allegations of corruption against him, as well as those filed by senior Indian Police Service officer Rashmi Shukla and former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh which sought protection against coercive action in two separate FIRs filed against them by the Mumbai police.

A division bench of justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale directed the CBI to respond to Deshmukh’s petition in four weeks.

“We cannot pass any orders without hearing the parties concerned. If there is extreme urgency, then you (Deshmukh) can move the vacation bench of the HC. You (Deshmukh) have that liberty,” the court told Deshmukh’s counsel Amit Desai

The petitions are the fallout of a letter that Singh wrote on March 20 alleging Deshmukh ran an extortion racket. The letter, addressed to the chief minister, also referred to an August 2020 report by Shukla, who was commissioner of the State Intelligence Department at the time, on a purported “money for transfer” scam involving police officers and politicians.

The HC on Thursday extracted a promise from the Maharashtra state that it would not arrest Shukla, who is on central deputation in Hyderabad, till the next date of hearing her plea. She moved the court on May 3 after she received summons from Mumbai cyber police asking her to appear before the investigation officer on the following day. She had also failed to appear at two previous summons -- on April 26 and 28.

Deshmukh resigned on April 5 citing moral grounds after the Bombay HC directed the CBI to probe Singh’s allegations.

The CBI lodged an FIR on April 21 against Deshmukh. The politician filed a petition on May 3 which claimed that the FIR was filed with a “biased” against him.

Singh’s petition sought quashing of an FIR registered against him under the Prevention of Atrocities Act last month based on a corruption complaint by police inspector Bhimrao Ghadge posted at Akola in Maharashtra.

The bench asked Singh to move the vacation bench in case of any urgency.