SC nixes Maharashtra plea to junk CBI FIR against Anil Deshmukh

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea of the Maharashtra government and its former home minister Anil Deshmukh for seeking to quash the FIR lodged against him by the CBI in the corruption case on various grounds, including that prior consent of the government was not taken.
After a day-long hearing, a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah said there was no need to interfere with the Bombay high court verdict which had refused the plea.
Advocate Rahul Chitnis, appearing for the Maharashtra government, said the high court direction was for a probe limited to allegations of collection of money from bars and restaurants and not on transfer, posting of police officers as mentioned in the case registered by the CBI.
The bench, however, said once the probe was ordered, the agency will look into all aspects which it comes across during the investigation. It said the state should be agreeable for a comprehensive probe to find out the truth and observed that the state was trying to “stultify” the probe at every stage.
It dismissed the plea against July 22 order of the Bombay HC and said it cannot dilute the direction of a constitutional court ordering a CBI probe by drawing a line for the agency on which aspect the investigation should be done.
The bench thereafter heard petition filed by Deshmukh against the same HC verdict. Senior advocate Amit Desai, made comprehensive arguments on Section 17A of Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018 under which sanction was needed to prosecute a public officer. He said it was mandatory to get consent of the state governemnt which was not done and sought the court’s interference as the issue had not been dealt with by any court after the amendment was brought in 2018.
The bench, however, said it was not inclined to interfere and it would pass a detailed order if the petitioner wants.