CBI denied Deshmukh’s further custody, court says its grounds not good

A special court on Saturday denied the CBI an additional three-day custody of former state minister Anil Deshmukh in a corruption case, noting in its order that the grounds on which the agency has sought the custody are not ‘good and satisfactory’.

Deshmukh, who was in judicial custody in a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), was arrested by the CBI on April 6. He has spent 11 days in the agency's custody and his custodial interrogation had been extended by the court on one previous occasion on April 11.

On Saturday, the senior NCP leader was produced before the special court at 10.30 am along with his co-accused – his personal assistant Kundan Shinde, personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and dismissed policeman Sachin Vaze. Appearing for the CBI, prosecutor Ratandeep Singh sought that while Vaze, Shinde and Palande be remanded in judicial custody, that it needed an additional three days custody of Deshmukh.

The court was told that the agency needs to probe the allegation against Deshmukh of corruption in favourable transfers and postings of police officers in exchange for bribes. Singh said that the police officers who got favourable transfers and postings need to be identified and Deshmukh confronted with them.

Arguing against this, Deshmukh’s advocate Aniket Nikam pointed out that in previous remand applications, too, the agency had cited the same reason. “This is just a pseudo reason cited to seek further custody,” he argued, adding that though the involvement of Deshmukh’s three co-accused is also mentioned in the aspect of transfers and postings in the CBI’s FIR, only the former minister’s custody is being sought. “They (CBI) want to extract some sort of confession, which is anyway inadmissible in the eyes of law,” he argued.

Special CBI Judge DP Shingade concluded that in its view the grounds for further custody are not good and satisfactory and proceeded to remand all four in judicial custody.