[BREAKING] Mumbai Court remands Anil Deshmukh to judicial custody till April 29

A Mumbai court on Saturday remanded former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh to judicial custody till April 29 in the corruption case being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)..Special Judge DP Shingade rejected the plea seeking extension of Deshmukh's custody with the central agency.The Court remanded Deshmukh and associates Kunadan Shinde and Sanjeev Palande, as well as dismissed Mumbai cop Sachin Waze, to judicial custody.Deshmukh is now in the judicial custody of the CBI Court as also the Special Court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), for the money laundering case being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED)."Pertinently, in earlier remand applications, the CBI had based their grounds as per the allegations mentioned in the FIR about exercising influence over the transfer and posting of the officials and considering the said ground the custody was granted. Therefore, in my view since sufficient CBI custody was granted, the grounds for further custody of the accused are not good and satisfactory. Hence, this court isn't inclined to grant CBI custody of the accused," the judge said in his order..Last year, the CBI had registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Deshmukh and unknown others on the basis of the findings in the preliminary inquiry initiated into the complaint of Dr. Jaishri Patil. The inquiry was initiated after a direction to that effect was issued on April 5, 2021 by the Bombay High Court in the plea filed by Param Bir Singh, former Commissioner of Mumbai Police.The Court had earlier ordered his remand with the agency for 5 days from April 6 to April 11, and was later extended by 5 more days. .Special Public Prosecutor Ratan Deep Singh, on behalf of the CBI, stated that further questioning of Deshmukh on allegations regarding transfers and postings was required.He submitted that Deshmukh was required to be confronted with other accused in the case in order to identify which police officers received the benefits, since the allegation is that bribes were demanded for transferring police officers. Singh pointed out that the Court had been satisfied every time and had granted the CBI custody of Deshmukh."The Court has seen our case diaries which details who all have been confronted with the accused. There is a possibility that the criminal involvement of other persons can also be unearthed. Thus we need to confront him with other suspects. There is a strong possibility that other accused will be named. These can be police officers, who have paid bribes and have got favourable posts." the SPP argued. He further argued,"His medical condition is taken care of by the CBI. There isn't any allegation that his medical conditions aren't been looked after."Singh thus sought Deshmukh's custody for an additional three days..Advocate Aniket Nikam, appearing for Deshmukh, opposed the remand by arguing that CBI had failed to showcase any grounds to seek extension of Deshmukh's custody. "When first remand was sought, one of the grounds was confronting with other accused, suspects and witnesses. Now please see second remand report, same ground is mentioned. Only new ground was that my client was evasive and thus further interrogation and confrontation is needed," Nikam contended. Nikam pointed out that the present remand report also did not include any allegation that Deshmukh was not co-operative."CBI is seeking custody of only Deshmukh and not other accused...no allegation that I am un co-operative. This is just a pseudo reason to seek my custody...Is this the way they probe?" Nikam argued. "...from last 11 days we have confronted with around 30 persons and in the next 3 days they will confront my client with 15 more persons. They are using stereotypical grounds," he added..Nikam reiterated that Deshmukh had made multiple requests to extend his co-operation to the investigation, but CBI had chosen to arrest him only after a year. Singh responded that it was the agency's prerogative on how to conduct the investigation. "His (Deshmukh) letters aren't binding on us. CBI isn't going to work as per the accused’s whims. We decided to interrogate only after we found proper material," the SPP concluded..After hearing the arguments at length, the Special Judge pronounced the verdict.