HC grants bail to ex-cop Sachin Waze in extortion case

The Bombay High Court granted bail to dismissed officer Sachin Waze in an extortion case, but he remains jailed for other charges.

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday granted bail to dismissed police officer Sachin Waze in the case of alleged extortion of bar owners in Mumbai, purportedly on behalf of then Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh. A division bench of justices MS Sonak and Jitendra Jain granted him bail primarily in view of him having become an approver in the case; the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) too had no objection to him being granted bail. The bail conditions will be set by the special CBI court handling the case, said the bench.

he Waze under arrest for several cases including the Antilia explosives scare case, the murder of Thane-based trader Mansukh Hiren and a money laundering case based on the CBI extortion case (PTI)

Waze will not, however, be released from jail, as he is under arrest for other cases including the Antilia explosives scare case, the murder of Thane-based trader Mansukh Hiren and a money laundering case based on the CBI extortion case.

The order came on a petition filed by Waze through advocate Rounak Naik, challenging validity of Section 306 (4)(b) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which mandated detention of an accused-turned-approver in custody till conclusion of the trial.

Waze had approached the high court after the special CBI court in June 2023 rejected his bail plea, observing that conditional grant of pardon by the court does not immediately alter status of an accused to a witness and the case against the accused cannot be dropped on becoming approver.

The special court had said that Waze was yet to testify in the trial court as a prosecution witness, as the law made it mandatory to detain the person, who has accepted to become an approver, till the end of the trial if he was under detention while he was granted pardon.

Waze had sought to be released on bail in the case, contending that the moment pardon was granted to the accused, he must be presumed to have been discharged whereupon he ceased to be an accused and became a witness.

The trial court rejected his contention, observing that it was not possible to entertain the contention that once tendered pardon, the person ceases to be an accused, and he is entitled to be released on bail.

The CBI had registered the case against Waze on April 21, 2021, based on allegations levelled by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh. In a letter written to several dignitaries on March 20, 2021, Singh had alleged that Deshmukh instructed certain Mumbai police officers including Waze to collect an amount of ₹100 crore every month from bar and restaurant owners in Mumbai.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) later registered a money laundering case against Deshmukh, his son Hrishikesh and others based on the April 2021 CBI first information report. The ED, in its probe, found that on Deshmukh’s instructions, Waze had allegedly called a meeting of bar owners, and between December 2020 and February 2021, collected ₹4.70 crore from owners of orchestra bars in Mumbai. In his statement to the ED, Waze had revealed that he had handed over the “extorted money” in two instalments to Deshmukh’s personal assistant Kundan Shinde.