Economic crimes require cool calculation, says CBI court, denies Anil Deshmukh bail

MUMBAI: A special CBI court on Friday rejected the bail plea of former Maharashtra home minister, Anil Deshmukh. While rejecting the 73-year-old Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader’s plea, the special court compared economic offences with murders and observed that economic offences are committed with cold calculations.

“Murder may be committed in a heat of the moment. Economic offences are committed with cool calculations,” said special judge SH Gwalani, adding that the white-collared crimes affecting the economy of the nation must be considered seriously.

“Material on record, active involvement of applicant and attempt to obtain undue advantage for the improper and dishonest performance of public duty, considering the seriousness of the offence, manner in which crime was committed, I am of the view in order to prevent such type of serious offences, it is not proper to release the applicant on bail,” the judge observed.

The court said that the statements of the approver dismissed Mumbai police officer Sachin Waze, and other witnesses cannot be overlooked at this stage.

The special court also refused to grant Deshmukh interim bail on medical grounds and observed that, “It is settled that bail on medical grounds has to be considered if required medical treatment is not available. In the present case, the accused is receiving appropriate and adequate medical treatment and facilities as per his requirement.”

Deshmukh was first arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on November 2, 2021, on the allegations of money laundering. ED’s case, registered on May 11 last year was based on the FIR registered by the CBI on April 21, 2021, after former Mumbai police commissioner, Param Bir Singh accused him of trying to extort money from bars owners in Mumbai through some police officials, including dismissed assistant inspector Sachin Waze.

In a letter written to Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and others on March 20, 2021, Singh alleged that Deshmukh had instructed certain Mumbai police officers to collect an amount of ₹100 crore every month from owners of bars and restaurants.

The agency claimed that Waze had accordingly called a meeting of bar owners and between December 2020 and February 2021, collected ₹4.7 crore from the owners of orchestra bars and handed over the “extorted money” in two instalments to Deshmukh’s personal assistant Kundan Shinde.

Deshmukh had applied to the special CBI court for bail in the first week of October.

HT PHOTO Anil Deshmukh.