Vaze-Deshmukh row: Won’t touch murky case, says former Mumbai Police officer

The comment came after Sharad Pawar recommended that Uddhav Thackeray could entrust the responsibility of carrying out a probe into the allegations against Anil Deshmukh to Julio Ribeiro

While Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar on Sunday recommended that Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray could entrust the responsibility of carrying out a probe into the serious allegations against home minister Anil Deshmukh in connection with police officer Sachin Vaze row to retired officer Julio Ribeiro, he has refused to take up the probe.

Ribeiro said, “Nobody has approached me and if they do, I will certainly not accept it. I would not like to touch this murky situation where money and encounters are involved.” (HT File)

Ribeiro said, “Nobody has approached me and if they do, I will certainly not accept it. I would not like to touch this murky situation where money and encounters are involved.”

Singh has accused Deshmukh of running a bribe ring and even asking Vaze to collect ₹100 crore. Deshmukh has denied all allegations. Vaze is under arrest in connection with his role in the security scare at industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s home, Antilia, and the death of trader Mansukh Hiran, in whose car the loose gelatin sticks were found.

Ribeiro, 91, who has the image of a clean and honest retired IPS officer and is known for raising voice for police reforms, had referred to Singh as a “bad cop” in 2018. Singh had demanded an apology and threatened to sue Ribeiro for using “contemptuous and defamatory language” against him. Singh did not respond to HT’s phone calls and messages.

Ribeiro in a newspaper article in The Indian Express on chief minister Devendra Fadnavis appointing Subodh Jaiswal as the new CP, had said, (referring to no one in particular) how two aspirants were rumoured to be vying for the job and how the CM “withstood all pressures from unsuitable contestants”. Ribeiro had then not taken Singh’s name in the piece. But Singh was one of the contenders for the post. Singh, who was then the Thane police commissioner, had said, “It is clear that the primary purpose of publishing the article was to defame me by insinuation and more importantly irreparably harm my goodwill and bring about wilful disrepute to me again through insinuation. You have caused irreparable damage to my reputation and interfered with the dispensation of public duties by me and the Thane police force.”

NCP chief Pawar on Sunday tweeted, “He (Rebeiro) has a great reputation and if he accepts this responsibility then the truth will definitely come to the fore and public at large will start believing more in the police and in the government in particular.”

An in-depth inquiry should be conducted by an officer or an individual who enjoys utmost respect of the police administration and public at large, Pawar added.

Ribeiro was the Mumbai police commissioner from January 25, 1982 to June 6, 1986. He was praised for curbing the menace of smuggling mafia that had made Mumbai its hub. He also served as the director general of police Gujarat and Punjab. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1987 for his services. Ribeiro is also one of the former retired DGPs and police commissioners of Maharashtra and Mumbai Police who had moved the Bombay High Court last year when the “unfair, malicious and false media campaign against Mumbai Police” was carried out during the Sushant Singh Rajput death controversy.