Not Pressing Ex-Police Chief To Withdraw Case Against Anil Deshmukh: Cop

An inspector in the Mumbai police filed an affidavit in the Bombay High Court on Thursday, saying his case under the Atrocities Act lodged against former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh was not to pressurise him to withdraw his complaint against ex-Maharashtra minister Anil Deshmukh.

Inspector Bhimrao Ghadge filed the affidavit through his advocate SB Talekar, opposing Param Bir Singh's petition seeking to quash the FIR registered against the former Mumbai police commissioner.

The inspector alleged that Param Bir Singh has defamed the police force by indulging in corrupt practices during his entire service career.

Last week, a vacation bench of the HC posted Singh's petition for hearing on May 21.

The Maharashtra government had then assured the court that it would not arrest Singh till May 21.

Param Bir Singh in his petition filed earlier this month claimed he was being targeted by the Maharashtra government with false criminal cases as a backlash of a letter he wrote in March this year to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, in which he levelled corruption allegations against Deshmukh.

Mr Ghadge in his affidavit termed Param Bir Singh's claim as "imaginary, concocted and fictional".

"I vehemently deny that the complaint was lodged by me and the FIR was registered by the police in an attempt to pressurise the petitioner (Singh) to withdraw the complaint letter dated March 20, 2021 written by him to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra," Mr Ghadge said in the affidavit.

The attempt to link the complaint lodged by Mr Ghadge with the letter written by Singh to the chief minister is baseless, the affidavit said.

Mr Ghadge also termed as false Param Bir Singh's claims that state Director General of Police Sanjay Pandey had conveyed to him that cases were being lodged against him (Singh) following his
corruption complaint against NCP leader Deshmukh.

"The petitioner cannot improve his case or discredit the complaint lodged by merely alleging malafides against Anil Deshmukh, former home minister of Maharashtra, or Sanjay Pandey, Director General of Police of Maharashtra," the affidavit said.

It further said Mr Ghadge lodged his first complaint against Param Bir Singh in January 2016, but at that time the case was not probed and hence, he lodged another complaint this year.

Mr Ghadge further claimed that when he refused to follow Singh's directives in a few investigations, the latter implicated him in false and frivolous complaints.

"The petitioner (Singh) has not only assassinated my character but has also subjected me to humiliation, indignity and mental torture by falsely implicating me in five criminal cases only because I had refused to obey his illegal orders and join hands with him in his corrupt practices," Mr Ghadge said in the affidavit.

The FIR was based on a complaint filed by Mr Ghadge, who is posted at Akola in Maharashtra.

In his complaint, Mr Ghadge had made a series of allegations of corruption against Param Bir Singh and other officers, in the period when Singh was posted with the Thane police.

The Akola police had registered a Zero FIR (mode of lodging FIR in any police station irrespective of the offence committed in that area or any other area) and it was later transferred to the Thane police for investigation.

Mr Ghadge, who was posted in the Thane Police Commissionerate during 2015-18, had alleged that Param Bir Singh pressured him to drop the names of some persons from a case and when he refused to do so, Param Bir Singh embroiled him in false cases.

The case has been lodged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence and sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.