Former city police commissioner Param Bir Singh felt threatened during a meeting with the then acting DGP Sanjay Pandey last year after his removal from the top post as Pandey advised him to withdraw his controversial letter to the Chief Minister and told him that the state government was considering initiating serious criminal cases against him.
Singh says this in his statement that forms a part of the Central Bureau of Investigation’s charge sheet filed early this month against NCP leader Anil Deshmukh and others. Pandey is now the city police chief. The former CP says in the statement that he had sought the meeting with Pandey after his removal as CP. The meeting lasted 45 mins and took place at the DG office. Singh says Pandey took the topic of his letter in which he had made corruption allegations against Deshmukh and told him he can’t fight the system, that he himself had fought it, but could not win.
“He also told me that apart from the departmental inquiry initiated against me, the state government was also considering serious criminal cases against me and advised me to avoid the fight, even if I was right,” his statement read. Singh further says that Pandey offered to mediate between the government and him for an amicable solution. Pandey is said to have asked him to withdraw the letter which had led to court petitions in the Bombay HC and the apex court so that the CBI inquiry that had been initiated as per HC’s order would become infructuous and the HC’s order meaningless.
When asked what he understood from his discussions with Pandey, Singh says in his statement, “I felt threatened because he warned me that the state government was contemplating criminal cases against me and through him (Pandey) a veiled message was being conveyed.”
Singh was asked why he continued his interactions with Pandey after the CBI began probing the matter, to which he says that he did so record the subsequent conversations for his own protection against false cases. Singh has submitted to the agency six recorded videos of his conversations with Pandey.
The CBI official recording his statement asks Singh regarding the videos and contends that the conversations show Pandey was advising him as a brother colleague and not on behalf of the government. To this Singh states that Pandey is an experienced police officer and has phrased his words cautiously, but that his information regarding criminal cases has come true since then.
