NEW DELHI: Pointing out “likelihood of bias” in the ongoing investigation by the Maarashtra police in criminal cases it has registered against Param Bir Singh, the Supreme Court on Monday said that it is prima facie of the view that the investigation against the former Mumbai police commissioner should be done by another agency and restrained the state police from filing chargesheet in cases against the senior IPS officer.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M M Sundresh, however, allowed the state police to proceed with its investigations against Singh. In the meanwhile, CBI told the bench that those cases should be transferred to the agency as it is already conducting a probe into the allegation levelled by the IPS officer against former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh. “We have no objection if the probe is given to us,” solicitor general Tushar Mehta told the bench which asked the agency to file its response on affidavit.
However, the state government opposed the plea for transfer of probe to CBI and senior advocate Darius Kambatta told the Bench that Param Bir Singh is not the whistleblower he has projected himself as, but was part of the system and responsible for transfers and postings which he now says involved corruption. “He turned whistleblower when he started feeling the heat,” he told the bench.
Opposing the CBI probe, Kambatta pointed out that the present CBI director was also part of the transfer and posting decisions when he was the DGP of the state and he will be “a witness if not accused” in the case. He said the Bombay high court has already reserved its verdict on a plea for court-monitored SIT probe on the FIR lodged by CBI against Deshmukh. He said CBI Director Subodh Kumar Jaiswal was part of the Police Establishment Board (PEB) that oversaw the transfers and postings of police officers in question.
