Mumbai: Ex Mumbai Police Commissioner Parambir Singh has told a judicial commission that he neither wants to show any evidence, nor does he want any cross-examination. This comes at a time when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh for alleged money laundering.
Singh, through his lawyer, made this submission to the Chandiwal Commission earlier this month, before the panel’s hearing on 28 October, according to media report.
The one-person commission under retired Justice K.U. Chandiwal was constituted by the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra to probe Singh’s claims that Deshmukh ran an extortion racket in Mumbai.
“He (Singh) issued a submission through his lawyer late October saying I don’t want to lead any evidence or cross-examine anyone at all. So practically there is no evidence,” advocate Shirish Hiray, the Chandiwal Commission’s lawyer, told ThePrint,
A state government official added that the commission, which is scheduled to meet next on 22 November, will decide to act on whatever recourse is available to it after this submission.
Param Bir Singh’s allegations
In March this year, Singh wrote an unsigned letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, alleging that then home minister Deshmukh had instructed his officers, including now-suspended cop Sachin Waze, to collect Rs 100 crore from Mumbai’s bars and restaurants every month.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing a money laundering angle in the case, arrested NCP leader Deshmukh late Monday night, after 12 hours of questioning, and has got him in custody till 6 November.
The ED had also issued a notice to Singh to appear before the agency in July in connection with its money laundering case against Deshmukh, but the former Mumbai Police chief did not respond.
Singh’s resistance to the Chandiwal Commission
Singh’s explosive letter to CM Thackeray came three days after the IPS officer was transferred from the high-profile post of Mumbai’s commissioner of police, following alleged lapses in the investigation into the recovery of explosives outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai home, Antilia. Singh was shunted to the unglamorous post of director-general, Home Guards.
Following his letter to the CM, Singh filed a petition before the Bombay High Court asking for an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into his allegations against Deshmukh. The high court ordered the CBI to conduct a preliminary probe, after which the central agency registered an FIR in the case, and the ED too registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) to probe charges of money laundering.
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