Shivani Gadhavi
Published On: December 23, 2021 at 16:30 IST
Delhi Court directs the Central Bureau of Investigation to initiate a probe against the former Home Minister of Maharashtra Anil Deshmukh regarding his involvement in the leak of the CBI’s Preliminary Enquiry (PE) documents related to the Maharashtra Bribery Case.
A Special Court Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal stated that although the former Maharashtra Home Minister was not named as an Accused in the Chargesheet filed by the CBI, it cannot be said that he is not at all involved in the conspiracy regarding the obtainment of the Preliminary Enquiry (PE).
The Special Court paid attention to the Chargesheet filed by the CBI against its own officer- Sub-Inspector Abhishek Tiwari and other Accused Anand Daga, Deshmukh’s Lawyer and Vaibhav Gajendra Tumane, Deshmukh-s social media handler. Tiwari is Accused of providing the documents related to PE to Daga and Tumane.
The Court stated, “It appears that accused persons i.e., Daga and Tumane were closely associated with Anil Deshmukh and may have been acting in tandem with him, who may be the controlling mind of the larger conspiracy, whereas the accused persons may only be hands, as he [Deshmukh] would have been and was the main beneficiary from the leakage of the contents of above PE and RC [case].”
The Court stated, “… the CBI/ investigating agency is directed to discreetly and thoroughly further investigate the role of Anil Deshmukh (Ex Home Minister Maharashtra) in the present matter or RC with the utmost alacrity, in a time-bound manner and file a status report in this regard within four weeks.”
The CBI revealed, “The Preliminary Enquiry prima facie revealed that a cognizable offence is made out in the matter, wherein the then Home Minister of Maharashtra, Shri Anil Deshmukh and unknown others have attempted to obtain undue advantage for improper and dishonest performance of their public duty.”
