Investigate Anil Deshmukh in document leak case: Delhi court to CBI

A Delhi court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to thoroughly investigate the role of former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in connection with the alleged leak of sensitive information and documents pertaining to the ongoing investigation against him..The order was passed by Special Judge Rouse Avenue Court, Sanjeev Aggarwal on Wednesday. The judge said that the CBI, by not probing Deshmukh, seemed to have have "left the engine pulling the cart"."The CBI seems to have left the engine / horse pulling the cart, thereby only arraigning those travelling in cart, as without pull of engine or horse the ride of cart or conspiracy would not have been possible, despite mountain of apparent evidence, CBI seems to have forsaken the man pulling the strings or the controlling mind or master mind or head while only chargesheeting the hands, for reasons best known," the Court observed.It, therefore, directed CBI to investigate Deshmukh's role and file a status report before the Court within 4 weeks. "Therefore CBI / investigating agency is directed to discreetly and thoroughly further investigate the role of Sh. Anil Deshmukh (Ex Home Minister Maharashtra) in present matter or RC with utmost alacrity, in a time bound manner, and are directed to file a status report in this regard within four (4) weeks of this order without fail," the Court directed..The Court observed that the two accused i.e Anand Daga and Abhishek Tiwari are associated with Anil Deshmukh and may have been acting in tandem with him as he is the one who was the main beneficiary from the leakage of the contents of preliminary enquiry.The Court also observed that the common objective of the conspiracy appeared to be to get access to the preliminary enquiry, albeit in an illegal and clandestine manner and thereafter use it and circulate it. For procuring the same, the accused conspired to commit a series of acts, the Court noted..The CBI's case is that Abhishek Tiwari, a sub-inspector, who had assisted the enquiry officer in the preparation of the said report and had been in possession of case sensitive documents and leaked information related to it to lawyer Anand Daga for an iPhone 12 Pro as illegal gratification..CBI claimed that Tiwari shared copies of documents like memorandum of proceedings, sealing-unsealing memorandum, statements, seizure memos etc., related to the investigation of the case with Daga through WhatsApp on many occasions. Therefore, Abhishek Tiwari who was entrusted with the possession of case sensitive documents as part of the enquiry and investigation in his capacity as a Sub-Inspector, has committed criminal breach of trust in respect of said property. "Investigation has established that Shri Abhishek Tiwari (A-1) in conspiracy with Shri Anand Dilip Daga (A-2), advocate of Shri Anil Deshmukh, leaked the case sensitive and secret documents to Shri Anand Dilip Daga (A-2) in order to subvert the investigation," CBI contended.The Court proceeded to list the case for scrutiny of documents on January 10, 2022 and for filing of status report January 22, 2022..In October 2021, the Delhi High Court had refused to grant bail to sub-Tiwari and Daga in the case.Justice Yogesh Khanna noted that the allegation in the first information report (FIR) was rather based on tampering of evidence.“Thus considering the initial stage of investigation, I am not inclined to grant bail to the petitioners herein, at this stage,” held the Court..[Read Order]