Supreme Court to hear ex-top cop Param Bir Singh’s plea seeking transfer of inquiries on June 11

By LE Desk

New Delhi, June 9, 2021: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on June 11 a plea filed by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh seeking transfer of all inquiries against him to an independent agency outside Maharashtra.

As per the cause list uploaded on the apex court website, the plea would come up for hearing before a vacation bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian on Friday, news agency PTI reported.

On May 18, Justice B R Gavai, who was part of a two-judge bench, had recused himself from hearing the plea.

“List the matter before a bench of which one of us (B R Gavai, J.) is not a member,” the bench had said in its May 18 order.

Singh, a 1988-batch IPS officer, was removed from the post of Mumbai Police Commissioner on March 17 and was made the General Commander of Maharashtra State Home Guard after he levelled allegations of corruption and misconduct against the then Home Minister and senior NCP leader Anil Deshmukh.

The Bombay High Court had ordered a CBI probe into allegations of Singh against Deshmukh who had to resign as the minister.

In his plea filed in the apex court, the senior police officer has alleged that he has been made to face several inquiries by the state government and its instrumentalities and sought their transfer outside Maharashtra and a probe into them by an independent agency like the CBI.

Singh has been facing inquiries, including the one under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in a case of 2015 and he has termed this as a witch-hunt by the state agency.

He has made the state government, the CBI and the Maharashtra Police chief as parties in his plea.

Singh, in his earlier plea filed before the top court, had sought a CBI probe against Deshmukh who, he claimed, had asked police officers, including Sachin Waze, to extort Rs 100 crore from bars and restaurants.

The top court had then asked him to go before the Bombay High Court which later ordered CBI probe into Singh’s allegations.

The state government and the NCP leader subsequently filed an appeal in the apex court but failed to get any relief against the high court order.

Deshmukh denied any wrongdoing and had said there was not an iota of substantive evidence to even prima facie establish that any of the allegations made by Singh had an element of truth, reported PTI.

In its 52-page judgement passed earlier, the high court had said that Singh’s allegations against Deshmukh had put at stake the citizen’s faith in the state police.

Such allegations, made by a serving police officer, against the state home minister could not be left unattended, and were required to be probed into, if prima facie, they made a case of a cognisable offence, the high court had said.

The high court’s verdict had come on three PILs including one filed by Singh seeking several reliefs as also a CBI probe into the matter.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2021/jun/09/supreme-court-to-hear-ex-top-cop-param-bir-singhs-plea-seeking-transfer-of-inquiries-onjune-11-2313885.html