Court rejects ex-Maharashtra minister Anil Deshmukh's further custody to CBI in corruption case

A Special CBI court on Saturday refused to grant further custody of former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh to the Central Bureau of Investigation after it sought his custody for a further three days. Anil Deshmukh`s lawyer Aniket Nikam opposed the CBI`s custody demand.

Meanwhile, the court rejected the plea of the CBI, which had arrested Deshmukh in connection with a corruption case on April 11, for a further three days of custody. The court instead sent him and the other accused, suspended police officers Sachin Waze, Kundan Shinde and Sanjeev Palande to judicial custody.

CBI had filed a plea seeking only the custody of Deshmukh for three more days for interrogation, saying that the others could be sent to judicial custody as their custodial interrogation was not needed.

Deshmukh and the other three accused were in the custody of the investigating agency from April 6 to 11 in connection with an alleged corruption and extortion case. On April 11, CBI asked the court for further five-day custody of the accused to confront them with more witnesses and suspects. 

The court granted the custody which ended today. Following this, the former Minister Anil Deshmukh, Sachin Waje, Kundan Shinde, and Sanjeev Palande were produced in a special CBI court in Mumbai where CBI asked for his further custody.

Notably, the Former Maharashtra Home Minister was arrested by ED in November, last year in connection with the alleged Rs 100-crore extortion and money laundering case.

Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh had accused Anil Deshmukh of asking dismissed assistant inspector Sachin Vaze to collect Rs 100 crore from hotels and bars in Mumbai every month. ED registered a case against Deshmukh and others based on a corruption case filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested the dismissed Mumbai police officer Sachin Waze in March 2021 in connection with the investigation into the recovery of explosives from a car parked near Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani`s house Antilia in Mumbai.

Live TV