Mumbai: Former state minister and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh has approached the Bombay high court seeking bail in the corruption case filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Aniket Nikam and Inderpal Singh, Deshmukh’s advocates, were granted liberty by vacation judge , MS Karnik, on Tuesday to file the bail plea in the high court registry.
On Wednesday, Nikam mentioned the bail plea before vacation judge, justice Sharmila Deshmukh.
Justice Deshmukh asked the CBI to file its reply by November 9, and kept the plea for hearing on November 11.
Deshmukh approached the HC challenging the order of October 22 of the special court rejecting his regular bail in the corruption case.
The HC, on October 4, had granted him bail in the alleged money laundering case registered against him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The Hc had observed then that, prima facie, the NCP leader may not be ultimately convicted in the case.
According to Deshmukh’s bail plea, the special court failed to consider the Hc’s observations while granting him bail in the connected money laundering case that prima facie Deshmukh may not be ultimately convicted. The trial court’s approach over reached the orders of the High Court and Supreme Court while granting him bail in the money laundering case.
“While it may not be contended that the order granting bail in PMLA case would ipso facto bind the trial court to grant bail in the scheduled or predicate offence, the findings recorded in the order passed by the High Court could not have been brushed aside lightly”, the plea emphasized.
The former minister reiterated that the PMLA case was an offshoot of the CBI case.
“Both cases have an umbilical cord connection. Therefore, it cannot be countenanced that once bail is granted to the applicant in the PMLA case, he could still be kept incarcerated in the present case”, the plea urged.
Court indulged in 'copy paste' job: Deshmukh
In the plea, Deshmukh has also contended that the special court indulged in a “copy paste” job in its order denying bail by making verbatim use of the contents of the chargesheet.
Even the chargesheet filed by CBI only contained evidence against one accusation out of the three alleged against him, Deshmukh argued, adding that the other two accusations were still in the process of being investigated.
Two different FIRs were filed against Deshmukh arising from the same allegations — one of money laundering by ED under the PMLA and the other by the other by the CBI for corruption under the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act.
According to the investigating agencies, Deshmukh and his associates indulged in corruption between 2019 and 2021.
Following orders of the Bombay high court on April 5, 2021, in a petition but former police commissioner Param Bir Singh, the CBI conducted preliminary investigation against Deshmukh and unknown others.
Based on the CBI FIR, the ED booked Deshmukh in a money laundering case and arrested him in November 2021.
