new Delhi. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the Maharashtra government’s plea seeking a direction to the CBI to hand over the probe against former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh to a Special Investigation Team (SIT). A bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said: ‘Sorry, this is dismissed.
The top court refused to interfere with the Bombay High Court order, which refused to entertain the Maharashtra government’s plea seeking a court-monitored probe by an SIT against Deshmukh.
Senior advocate C.A., representing the Maharashtra government. Sundaram submitted before the bench that the state government objected to the ongoing CBI probe against Deshmukh, in which Subodh Kumar Jaiswal was the CBI director.
Sundaram vehemently argued that Jaiswal was also the former DGP of Maharashtra at the relevant time and chairman of the Police Establishment Board, which probed the transfers and postings of police officers concerned.
In the bench, Justice M.M. Sundaresh was also present. “We will not touch the matter,” he said.
Sundaram said the present CBI chief would either probably be an accused or would definitely be a witness. “I am not going to go into the possibility of bias, a person who is relevant as a witness or an accused was directly involved,” he said.
Sundaram insisted that “if such a situation has arisen then your dominance can be the SIT or any person probing the matter.”
After hearing the arguments, the bench said that it is not inclined to entertain the plea of the state government.
In April last year, the CBI had registered a case against Deshmukh and others under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code.
Deshmukh, a senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, is facing charges of accepting bribes for police transfers and postings during his tenure as home minister.
—AnyTV News
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