Two special courts in Mumbai on Friday granted CBI the custody of former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh, his two aides and dismissed police officer Sachin Waze for investigation in a corruption case registered against them.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Mr Deshmukh (71) and his aides Sanjeev Palande and Kundan Shinde are currently in judicial custody in a money laundering case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). They are lodged in the Arthtur Road jail in the city.
The Central Bureau of Investigation had filed an application before additional sessions judge D P Singhade for their custody.
The judge on Thursday issued a letter of request to the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court, which hears ED cases, to transfer Mr Deshmukh and the other two to the custody of the CBI.
The CBI had also sought the custody of Sachin Waze. Mr Waze was arrested in March 2021 by the National Investigation Agency in the Antilia bomb scare-Mansukh Hiran murder case. Following this, judge D P Singhade had sent a similar letter of request to the special NIA court.
Mr Waze is currently in judicial custody at Taloja Jail in neighbouring Navi Mumbai.
The special PMLA and NIA courts on Friday directed, in separate orders, the superintendents of respective jails to hand over the custody of the four accused -- Mr Deshmukh, Mr Palande, Mr Shinde and Mr Waze -- to the CBI.
Former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh had alleged that Mr Deshmukh, then home minister, had given a target to police officers to collect Rs 100 crore per month from restaurants and bars in the city.
Mr Deshmukh denied the allegations but stepped down from his post after the Bombay High Court directed the CBI to register a case against him.
Incidentally, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea by the Maharashtra government challenging an order of the Bombay High Court dismissing its petition seeking an SIT to probe the corruption case against Mr Deshmukh.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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