A special court on Saturday denied the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) an additional three-days custody of former state home minister Anil Deshmukh in a corruption case, opining in its order that the grounds on which the agency has sought the politician’s custody are not ‘good and satisfactory’.
Deshmukh, who was in judicial custody in a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), was arrested in this present case by the CBI on Apr 6. Since then, his custodial interrogation had been extended by the court on one previous occasion on Apr 11. He had spent a total of 11 days in the agency’s custody. On Saturday, the senior leader of the NCP was produced before the special court at 10.30 am along with his co-accused - his personal assistant Kundan Shinde, personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and dismissed policeman Sachin Vaze. Appearing for the CBI, prosecutor Ratandeep Singh sought that while Vaze, Shinde and Palande be remanded in judicial custody, that it needed an additional three days custody of Deshmukh.
The court was told that the agency needs to probe the allegation against Deshmukh of corruption in favourable transfers and postings of police officers in exchange for bribes. Singh said that the police officers who got favourable transfers and postings need to be identified and Deshmukh confronted with them.
Arguing against this, Deshmukh’s advocate Aniket Nikam pointed out that in previous remand applications too, the agency had cited the same ground for an extended custody. “This is just a pseudo reason cited to seek further custody,” he argued, adding that though the involvement of Deshmukh’s three co-accused is also mentioned in the aspect of transfers and postings in the CBI’s FIR, only Deshmukh’s custody is being sought. He said Deshmukh had already undergone 11 days of custody and on flimsy grounds, further custody is being sought of a 73-year-old. “They (CBI) want to extract some sort of confession, which is anyway inadmissible in the eyes of law,” he argued.
Special CBI Judge DP Shingade said in the order while refusing further extension of custody as sought by the agency, that sufficient custody had already been granted and that earlier too while extending custody, the court had considered the ground that the agency was citing presently. It concluded that in its view the grounds for further custody are not good and satisfactory and proceeded to remand all four in judicial custody.
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