Mumbai: Former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh was remanded in Enforcement Directorate custody till Nov. 6, 2021. The agency has asked the court for 14days of custody earlier. During the hearing, Deshmukh requested the court to provide him meals from the house and allow family members to meet him. He also requested an assistant.
Deshmukh was arrested by the agency on Monday night in connection with extortion and money laundering allegations against him. He was produced before the court on Tuesday. According to an ED official, he was arrested after 13 hours of questioning at the central agency office on Monday.
Deshmukh, a senior Nationalist Congress Party leader, said he was appearing before the ED voluntarily as he respected the law and the arrest came on expected lines. Deshmukh had gone to the ED office on Monday for a probe into the allegations of Rs 100 crore extortion levelled by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh.
The former Maharashtra Home Minister had gone to the ED office for the probe into the allegations of extortion and corruption levelled against him by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh. The development came a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation apprehended a middleman Santosh Jagtap from Thane, who was an alleged conduit in the corruption deals and evading arrest.
"I respect the courts... but I want to know where is Param Bir Singh, who levelled the false allegations against me," he said in a statement before he went to the central agency accompanied by his lawyer. Whenever he received the ED summons -- at least five -- in the past, he had promptly responded pointing out that his case was sub-judice before the courts concerned, he said. Even for the two CBI notices, he has immediately replied citing the same reasons, and said even now his matter is pending before the Supreme Court.
Also read: ED raids ex-Maha HM Anil Deshmukh's residence
"Despite all this, the ED-CBI have raided all my homes (Mumbai-Nagpur), my family members, my associates... false news was being spread that I am absconding, but I have come here on my own," he said. He pointed out how Singh, the man who levelled the fake charges at him, is untraceable and has reportedly sneaked out of the country according to some reports in the media.
The senior NCP leader has stirred up a hornet's nest in April 2020 after Singh's letter to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray alleging that he (Deshmukh) had set a Rs 100-crore collection target for the former dismissed police officer Sachin Vaze. Deshmukh had moved to the Bombay High Court, but in vain, while his case was pending before the Supreme Court, even as the agencies have summoned his wife Aarti and their son Hrishikesh for investigations, while the ED has attached portions of his properties worth Rs 4.20 crore.
Earlier, the ED arrested Deshmukh's former close aides Sanjeev Palande and Kundan Shinde, followed by the CBI's nabbing of Jagtap amid speculation that the ex-Minister could face arrest. The BJP state President Chandrakant Patil welcomed the move saying that "actually, Deshmukh had no options left", but to appear before the ED as he realised that the long arms of the law will ultimately catch up with him.
