Mumbai: The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government on Wednesday moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash certain parts of the FIR lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against former home minister Anil Deshmukh in an alleged case of corruption, and said that the CBI had travelled beyond the limits set.
The state has gone on to claim that the CBI’s FIR is intended to destabilize the present Shiv Sena - NCP - Congress dispensation in Maharashtra and to please certain political groups.
The state government has said that the FIR lodged by the CBI has two unnumbered paragraph that specifically states that the central agency would probe the reinstatement of now jailed cop Sachin Waze and the transfer/posting of police officers. This, the state has argued shows the agency's malafide intent and is beyond the limits of the probe ordered by the high court in last month.
Notably, the high court bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta had ordered the CBI to probe into the complaint filed by a Pune-based advocate Jaishri Patil against Deshmukh. Patil in her complaint and even in her petition before CJ Datta had only mentioned about the allegations levelled by former Commissioner of Police, Mumbai - Param Bir Singh in his eight page letter.
The state pointed out that the high court had on April 21 specifically ordered the CBI to probe into the allegations of Singh. Relying on the directive of the high court, the state has now contended that the CBI cannot probe into these two aspects - reinstatement of Sachin Waze and the transfer/posting of cops in the state.
"These two paragraphs show the intention (of the agency) to carry out fishing and roving inquiry into the administration of the state in order to try and find out some material enabling political groups that are presently not in power in Maharashtra, to try and destabilise the present government," the plea stated.
The petition further states that the MVA government doesn't want to obstruct the probe or delay the matter but have only objected the two unnumbered paragraphs, which are not within the limits of the high court order.
The state has accordingly urged the high court to quash the two paragraphs of the FIR. And as an interim relief, the state has sought a directive to the central agency not to proceed with the probe till further orders.
The plea might be heard in the due course.