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Inspector accuses ex-Mumbai top cop of cheating, corruption
A serving inspector of Maharashtra police force has levelled serious allegations of corruption against former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh, in yet another twist to the saga of charges and counter charges that have roiled the department over the past months
A serving inspector of Maharashtra police force has levelled serious allegations of corruption against former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh, in yet another twist to the saga of charges and counter charges that have roiled the department over the past months.
Inspector BR Ghadge, posted at Akola, wrote on April 20 , a 14-page complaint (HT has a copy) against Singh to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackerey, home minister Dilip Walse Patil, the Director General of Police Maharashtra, Sanjay Pandey and DG Anti-Corruption Bureau, alleging that while serving as Commissioner of Police, Thane, Singh indulged in several illegal acts and made crores of rupees.
Pandey confirmed receipt of the letter: “A complaint has been received by my office and as per legal procedure it is being looked into.”
Singh did not answer phone calls and messages seeking comment.
Ghadge’s letter claimed that as Thane CP, Singh gave orders to police officers to extricate some influential people from criminal cases registered against them, allegedly in return for huge sums of money.The letter further alleged that Singh accepted ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore for posting of senior inspectors, and that he insisted on being gifted gold biscuits on Diwali from all zonal DCPs, ACPs and senior inspectors of Thane police .
The letter specifically mentions a cheating and forgery case from 2013 where Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation officials gave extra FSI to builders in dead people’s names and claimed that Ghadge was asked to drop the name of 22 government officials from the case. It also mentions the case involving a fake call centre on Mira road and several others.
Ghadge alleged that because he refused to drop the case against the 22 in the KDMC case, four false cases were registered against him.
Ghadge has furnished details of the FSI case along with his complaint.
According to the complaint, Singh bought 21 acres in Sindhudurg district in someone else’s name. He also alleged that Singh was using two government residences at one time, which amounts to criminal misconduct.
Inspector Ghadge said that all these complaints were also previously made by him on September 21, 2015, March 17, 2016, May 30, 2016 and June 8, 2016, but that no action was taken. He added in the letter that he has also filed five write in the Bombay High Court in this regard over the years.
Singh was removed as commissioner for what the state government claimed was his mishandling of the Antilla explosives case, and the murder of Mansukh Hiran, the man in possession of the vehicle in which the explosives were found, outside the residence of billionaire Mukesh Ambani. Hiran reported the vehicle stolen around a week before it was found with the explosives in late February. He himself was subsequently found dead. Mumbai policeman Sachin Vaze has been named as the main accused in both cases by the National Investigation Agency. After his removal as commissioner, Singh wrote a letter to the chief minister alleging that the state’s home minister Anil Deshmukh instructed Vaze to extort money from restaurants and bars in the city. He also approached the courts with his complaint, following which the Bombay High Court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct a preliminary enquiry into the matter, a move that forced Deshmukh’s resignation.
Singh is already facing two enquiries being carried out by DGP Sanjay Pandey.
In the first, Pandey is checking whether there was any dereliction of duty on part of Singh in not apprising the government about the Antilia bomb scare . The second inquiry pertains to corruption allegations made against him by police inspector Anup Dange.
