MUMBAI: Director general of police (DGP) of Maharashtra Sanjay Pandey, in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, denied as “false and mischievous” the allegation that he had advised former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh not to fight the system.
Pandey said it was Singh who had reached out to him and pleaded for help, and said he was in no position to comm-unicate with the state. “I bona fide suggested that I could try and convey to the state on behalf of the petitioner [Singh] whatever he decided or wanted to do,” said Pandey, in a 29-page counter-affidavit filed by his lawyer Samrat Shinde.
Pandey denied the allegations that he had offered to mediate between the state and Singh and that he had initiated the topic of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe against former state home minister Anil Deshmukh. The DGP also denied that there was any quid pro quo whatsoever that was ever discussed and said that he received no instructions from the state with regard to the conversations between Singh and him.
Pandey had been named as the officer for the preliminary enquiry ordered against Singh on April 1. Singh “represented to me that he was meeting me in my capacity as his senior officer and colleague…I did not volunteer or gratuitously offer any advice or intercede,” said the DGP, adding that Singh told him “he was in great tension” after writing a letter to the chief minister on March 20 and the fallout of his action. Singh, Pandey said, “regretted doing so and begged me for my guidance and for a solution to the predicament” he was in.
Pandey said Singh “indulged in blatant falsehoods” wi-th regard to content and context in which certain conversations did take place between them on April 15 and 18. “It is apparent that the narrative of the petitioner [Singh] is a blatant concoction to suit his own false narrative with clear ulterior motives…of defeating and derailing the enquiries against him,” said Pandey seeking dismissal of Singh’s special leave petition against the Bombay high court order of September 16.
The HC had dismissed Singh’s challenge to two preliminary enquiries for alleged violation of All India Service (Conduct) Rules following his letter to the CM alleging “corrupt malpractice” by Deshmukh. The HC had said Singh could approach the Central Administrative Tribunal with his grievances. Pandey had been appointed by the state to conduct the PEs, but had withdrawn when Singh filed his petition before the HC.
Singh, in a letter to the CBI on April 19, alleged that on April 15, he had met Pandey for a “courtesy call” and was advised by him to withdraw his letter or face consequences as the state intended to take action. Singh had also said he had transcripts of the conversation. But Pandey said, “It is crucial to note that the so-called transcripts of recorded conversations have conveniently not been annexed to the petition [by Singh]” and he had “produced only extracts” even in the letter to CBI, which is annexed to the petition.
Pandey denied Singh’s claims that he had said the state was contemplating to generate fictitious complaints against Singh, or that he would be in a position to seek relief for Singh from the state. Pandey said he was “not the punishing authority”, and hence Singh’s allegations of purported advice by him are “misleading”.
