Anil Deshmukh money laundering case: SC rejects Maharashtra govt's plea for SIT to probe corruption case

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the Maharashtra Government's plea to transfer the investigations against its former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh from the CBI to a court-monitored special investigation team (SIT) of the Mumbai Police, since the CBI chief is biased as he was a party to transfers and postings as then DGP of the state.

The apex court held that the CBI probe against Deshmukh will continue, refusing to interfere with the order of the Bombay High Court instituting the probe. The Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh clarified that it "would not touch this matter."

The Bench also rejected an argument by senior advocate Aryama Sundaram that the ongoing probe with Subodh Kumar Jaiswal as the CBI director was improper since he is bound to be biased and is rather an accused in the case as he was earlier the former Director General of Police (DGP) and part of the state police establishment board, which oversaw the transfer and postings of the concerned police officers.

The senior advocate's contention was: "The present director of CBI at relevant time was the chairman of the establishment board responsible for transfers. He will either be possibly an accused or definitely a witness. I am not going into likelihood of bias, a person who is relevant as a witness or an accused, he was directly involved. My only submission is that if this is the situation that has arisen, your lordship may constitute a SIT or whoever to investigate the matter. It surely cannot be a person responsible for actions complained about in the FIR; he cannot be the person to conduct investigations."

Justice Kaul, however, dismissed the plea saying: "It is a complete red herring…Sorry, dismissed."

On April 24 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 (IPC). The High Court had directed a preliminary inquiry and rejected the state government's plea for the SIT probe. The state government had challenged certain portions of the FIR regarding transfer and postings of certain police officers.