Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh, on Thursday, filed a petition in Bombay High Court seeking CBI probe into the alleged corruption charges against Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, reported news agency ANI.
Earlier, Singh in his petition in Supreme Court challenged his transfer and sought CBI inquiry against Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh. However, the Supreme Court refused to entertain his plea of a CBI probe into the corruption charged against Deshmukh.
The apex court, on Wednesday, termed the matter "quite serious", and asked the IPS officer to approach the Bombay High Court with his grievances.
The apex court said both Singh and Deshmukh have levelled allegations against each other, and it appeared that a lot of material that has come in public domain is a consequence of "personas falling out" after parties in the matter being "hunky-dory" for a long time.
A bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul allowed Singh to withdraw the plea and approach the High Court.
The Bench said the allegations and counter-allegations between Singh and Deshmukh are "serious", but the case should be heard by the High Court first.
"No doubt the matter is quite serious, it also appears a lot of material in the public domain due to personas falling apart," the Bench observed while asking senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi appearing for Singh to approach the Bombay High Court.
"There is now another angle to it. The concerned parties were quite hunky-dory for very long. Now having fallen apart, one is making the allegation against the other. It is a serious matter no doubt. The High Court is competent to deal with this issue," the apex court said.
Thereafter, Rohatgi withdrew the plea from the top court and said he will move to Bombay High Court immediately.
The Bench in its order stated, "The petitioner withdraw the petition with liberty to approve the High Court. They will file a plea today and would like the matter to be taken tomorrow. Liberty to approach the High Court granted." During the hearing, the Bench also said that it's "unfortunate" that the Supreme Court's judgement on police reform has not been implemented. The issue of police reforms props up only when some political situation explodes, Justice Kaul added.
Singh on Monday filed a petition before the apex court claiming that Deshmukh "pressurised" him to probe the role of certain BJP leaders and to "somehow implicate" them in the case of the death of MP Mohan Delkar and he "did not succumb" to the pressure.
Singh, who was shunted out as Mumbai Police Commissioner in the wake of the Antilia bomb scare case, has also challenged the government's order transferring him from the post of Mumbai Police Commissioner.
In his plea, he also repeated the graft allegations he had made against Deshmukh in a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, and also accused the Maharashtra Home Minister of interfering in police investigations.
Singh, who was recently transferred, has alleged wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray claiming Deshmukh's involvement in severe "malpractices".
However, Anil Deshmukh on Saturday refuted all the allegations made by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh against him. Deshmukh said the police officer made these false allegations to save himself from legal action.
(With inputs from Agencies)
