The Supreme Court on Wednesday said there was no doubt that the issues raised by former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh in his plea against Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh were “quite serious”, but asked him to approach the Bombay High Court with his grievances. The court allowed Singh to withdraw his plea seeking direction for an “impartial and fair” CBI probe into alleged corrupt practices of Deshmukh.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and R S Reddy granted liberty to Singh to approach the Bombay High Court with his grievances.
There is no doubt that the matter is quite serious, the bench observed. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Singh, said they would file a petition in the high court today itself and the apex court can say that the high court should take it up on Thursday.
At the outset, the bench told Rohatgi that there are two preliminary questions, one is why Article 32 petition has been filed in the top court and the petitioner has not approached the high court under Article 226, and why Singh has not impleaded the state home minister as a party in his plea. Rohatgi said that he will implead Deshmukh as a party in the matter and the application in this regard is ready.
The bench said the court is of the view that the petitioner should approach the high court and if he wants investigation by an independent agency, the high court can deal with this. Rohatgi submitted that there was evidence in the form of CCTV footage, which was in the possession of ATS and that has not been handed over to the NIA.
NIA is probing the case related to the February 25 incident in which a car with explosives was found outside the house of India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani leading to a bomb scare. “In view of the aforesaid, the petitioner seeks to withdraw the petition with liberty to approach the High Court,” the bench said while grating liberty to Singh to approach the high court.
On Rohatgi’s submission that the high court be asked to take up Singh’s plea on Thursday, the bench said the petitioner can make this request before the high court.
Singh has also sought quashing of the order transferring him from the post of Mumbai’s Commissioner of Police alleging it was arbitrary and illegal.
~With inputs from PTI~