Keypoints:
- Singh said that Deshmukh had asked Vaze to collect Rs.100 Cr as bribe every month from restaurants, hotels and other establishments.
- Mr Deshmukh had said some “unforgivable” lapses had been revealed in the Mukesh Ambani security scare probe under the police chief.
On Saturday, the Sachin Vaze controversy blew up right in front of the face of Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government in Maharashtra with former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh. Singh has been unceremoniously transferred a few days back for accusing Home Minister Anil Deshmukh of corruption.
At a briefing session about the SUV incident, Singh had raised “several misdeeds” and “malpractices” on the part of Deshmukh, a senior NCP leader.
“I have similarly briefed the Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister, Maharsahtra, the President of the Nationalist Congress Party, Shri Sharad Pawar and other senior Ministers also about the misdeeds and malpractices. On my briefings, I noticed that some of the Ministers were already aware about some aspects mentioned by me to them,” he said.
“The Hon’ble Home Minister expressed to Shri Vaze that he had a target to accumulate Rs. 100 crores a month. For achieving the aforesaid target, the Hon’ble Home Minister told Shri Vaze that there are about 1,750 bars, restaurants and other establishments in Mumbai and if a sum of Rs. 2-3 lakhs each was collected from each of them, a monthly collection of Rs. 40-50 crores was achievable,” the letter said.
Further, Singh told that Vaze himself told him about Deshmukh when he came to his office the very same day.
“I was shocked with the above discussion and was mulling over how to deal with the situation,” he wrote.
“The Hon’ble Home Minster has been instructing them to carry out official assignments and collection schemes including financial transactions as per his instructions based on his expectations and targets to collect money,” he wrote.
“Despite being fully aware of the opinion of the legal experts, the general opinion and the reasons behind it, the Hon’ble Home Minister announced the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and registration of an FIR into the alleged case of abetment of suicide of late Shri Mohan Delkar, Member of Parliament, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, on the floor of the Maharashtra Assembly on 9th March 2021,” he said.
Singh added that Deshmukh was “unhappy” due to his resistence about the same.
” … The Hon’ble Home Minister was unhappy with me as the political mileage desired to be derived from the registration of the abetment of suicide case in Mumbai in the death of Shri Mohan Delkar, Member of Parliament against senior officials of Dadra & Nagar Haveli was not being achieved,” he claimed.
“Sachin Waze’s direct links in Antilia case and Mansukh Hiran case are coming out. Param Bir Singh is afraid that its connections will reach up to him. He has made these false allegations to save and protect himself from legal action,” Deshmukh said on Twitter.
“We demand the home minister’s resignation. If he doesn’t, then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray must remove him. An impartial probe must be conducted. The letter also says the chief minister was informed about this earlier, so why didn’t he act on it?” Fadnavis, leader of the opposition in Maharashtra assembly, told reporters.
“Letter from Param Bir Singh was received at 4:37 pm today via a different email address, not his official one and was without his signature. The new email address needs to be checked. Home ministry is trying to contact him for the same,” the Chief Minister’s Office said in a statement.
Since the letter was not mailed by Singh from his official email id,the Maharashtra government has said that it is confirming regarding the same.
Hiran was found to be in possession of the Scorpio car that was parked near Ambani’s house. He was later found dead in a creek in Thane on March 5.
