Three weeks after he was granted bail in the alleged money laundering case, Maharashtra’s former Home Minister and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh has moved the Bombay High Court, seeking a regular bail in a corruption case lodged against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
A day after his Advocates Aniket Nikam and Inderpal Singh moved the vacation judge Justice MS Karnik who granted them leave to file the bail plea in the registry, Deshmukh’s counsel completed the procedure and mentioned the matter before vacation judge Justice Sharmila Deshmukh on
Wednesday.
The Judge asked the CBI to file its reply by November 9 and scheduled hearing of the plea for November 11.
Deshmukh’s plea for bail before the high court comes less than a week after a Special CBI court rejected his regular bail plea on October 22.
In his plea, Deshmukh stated that the CBI Court had failed to consider the ’s observations of the High Court in its order granting bail to Deshmukh in the alleged money laundering case which prima facie indicated that the former minister might not be ultimately not convicted.
Contending that the trial court’s approach over reached the order of the High Court while granting bail to Deshmukh in the money laundering case, Deshmukh stated in his plea: “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”.
Maintaining that both the alleged money laundering and corruption cases had an “umbilical cord connection”, Deshmukh stated in his plea: “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 CBI, which had registered a case against Deshmukh on April 21, 2021 against Deshmukh, filed a charge-sheet against him, his personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and his personal assistant Kundan Shinde on June 2, 2022.
The CBI told the court in its charge-sheet that the preliminary inquiry conducted by it had revealed that Deshmukh and others allegedly attempted to obtain “undue advantage for improper & dishonest performance of their public duties”. It also alleged that Deshmukh and others had “exercised undue influence over the transfers & postings of police officers”.
Among other things, Deshmukh contended in his bail application that the trial court indulged in a “copy paste” job in its order denying bail by making verbatim use of the contents of the charge-sheet.