[BREAKING] Anil Deshmukh moves Bombay High Court seeking bail in corruption case

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has approached the Bombay High Court seeking bail in the corruption case against him which is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)..Deshmukh's lawyers Advocates Aniket Nikam and Inderpal Singh moved the vacation judge Justice MS Karnik on Tuesday, who granted them leave to file the bail plea in the registry. After completing the filing procedure, the counsel again mentioned the matter for urgent hearing before vacation judge Justice Sharmila Deshmukh. The Court asked the CBI to file its reply by November 9, and posted the plea for hearing on November 11. .Deshmukh's plea in High Court has been filed within a week after the Special CBI Court at Mumbai rejected his regular bail plea on October 22. He pointed out that the CBI Court failed to consider the observations of the High Court in its order granting bail to Deshmukh in the connected money laundering case which prima facie recorded that Deshmukh may not be ultimately convicted. The plea by Deshmukh stated that trial court’s approach over reached the order of the High Court and Supreme Court passed while granting bail to Deshmukh in the money laundering case.“While it may not be contended that the order granting bail in PMLA case would ipso facto bind the trial court to grant bail in the scheduled or predicate offence, the findings recorded in the order passed by the High Court could not have been brushed aside lightly”, the plea emphasized. Deshmukh reiterated that the PMLA case was an offshoot of the CBI case and in conjunction of the same. “Both cases have an umbilical cord connection. Therefore, it cannot be countenanced that once bail is granted to the applicant in the PMLA case, he could still be kept incarcerated in the present case”, the bail application urged. Deshmukh also contended that the trial court indulged in a “copy paste” job in its order denying bail by making verbatim use of the contents of the chargesheet.Even the chargesheet filed by CBI only contained evidence against one accusation out of the three alleged against him, Deshmukh argued, adding that the other two accusations were still in the process of being investigated..There are two separate proceedings against Deshmukh arising from the same allegations - one by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the offence of money laundering and the other by the CBI for offences under the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act.Deshmukh and his associates are being investigated for alleged corruption that took place between 2019 and 2021. Based on the findings of a preliminary investigation into a complaint by advocate Dr Jaishri Patil, the CBI booked Deshmukh and unknown others.The inquiry was launched after Bombay High Court issued a direction to that effect on April 5, 2021, in response to a petition filed by Param Bir Singh, former Commissioner of Mumbai Police.Based on this FIR of CBI, the ED initiated a case of money laundering invoking offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Deshmukh and arrested him in November 2021.Deshmukh filed for bail in the ED case before the Bombay High Court in March 2022 after a special PMLA court rejected his bail plea. The High Court, on October 4, granted bail to Deshmukh in the money laundering case. This was upheld by the Supreme Court on October 11.Immediately thereafter, Deshmukh moved the CBI Court seeking bail in the CBI case. It was heard by the special judge extensively with the CBI vehemently opposing the bail application. The special judge the rejected the bail plea leading to the present plea before the High Court..Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.