NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to cancel the CBI probe ordered by the Bombay high court into charges levelled by ex-Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh against former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh.
The apex court dismissed the pleas filed by Maharashtra government and Anil Deshmukh against the high court order.
The top court said that CBI probe was needed in view of the nature of allegations, persons involved and the seriousness of the charges.
“We don’t want to interfere with the orders of high court directing preliminary inquiry by CBI,” the bench said.
The court was so convinced with the HC order that the opposite parties did not have to argue the case and the pleas were dismissed after hearing only the petitioners.
“It is only a preliminary enquiry, nothing is wrong in it when serious allegations are made by senior officer against senior minister,” a bench of Justices S K Kaul and Hemant Gupta said.
The bench observed that two people involved in the case were the police commissioner and the home minister and had been together till they fall apart.
“It was not your (Deshmukh) enemy who made the allegations against you … it was levelled by someone who was almost your right-hand man,” the court said.
It said a probe should be conducted against both.
In its plea, the Maharashtra government had questioned the procedure adopted by high court saying the state was heard on question of maintainability of the pleas seeking CBI investigation against Deshmukh on allegation of corruption, and the order too was reserved on that issue, but the court finally ended up directing the probe.
After the high court order on April 5, Anil Deshmukh, a veteran NCP leader from Vidarbha, had resigned from the state government.