Inclined to dismiss plea filed by Waze against judicial panel order: HC

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday said it was inclined to dismiss a petition filed by dismissed policeman Sachin Waze challenging two orders of the panel set up to probe into the corruption allegations against former Maharashtra minister Anil Deshmukh.

Waze, who is presently in jail after his arrest in the Antilia bomb scare and murder case of businessman Mansukh Hiran, in his petition challenged the legality, validity and propriety of the two orders passed by the Chandiwal Commission and sought to quash the same.

The first order of the panel refused Waze's application seeking to summon the Joint Commissioner of police (Crime) Milind Bharambe for examination, while in the second order, the commission denied him permission to retract his earlier statement against Deshmukh.

A division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Madhav Jamdar, however, said it was not inclined to grant any relief and said it would dismiss the petition.

Waze's counsel Anil Anturkar then sought that the matter be posted on Wednesday so that he could take instructions from the former policeman on whether he would prefer to withdraw the plea.

"You (Waze) either withdraw the petition or we dismiss it with strictures," the court said.

Waze had filed an application before the Chandiwal Commission on January 21 this year seeking to summon the then joint commissioner of police (Crime) Bharambe for examination before the Commission.

Bharambe had written a letter and later authored a report on March 25, 2021.

Former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh had presented a copy of this secret letter along with Bharambe's report March 30, 2021 before the commission.

Waze had sought to call Bharambe before the Commission claiming that the latter's report is prejudicial to his interest.

However, the Commission dismissed his application on January 24.

On February 9, Waze had made an application seeking to retract his statement with regard to Deshmukh. He had said that neither the former minister nor his associates or people related to him have ever made any monetary demand or instructed him to extort Rs 100 crore from the city's bar owners.

However, a month later Waze sought to retract the statement, which the commission did not permit.

According to Waze's plea before the court, he had filed an affidavit before the Commission along with his application for retraction of his statement.

The former policeman had claimed that he was under immense and tremendous pressure due to his arrest by the Mumbai crime branch.

He has alleged that he was mentally harassed and victimised so as to affect his psyche and his state of mind, and claimed that he was subjected to severe mental torture and harassment apparently by Deshmukh and it continued even after his resignation.

Consequently, when the petitioner was put certain questions at the time of his cross examination before the Hon'ble One Member High Level Committee, the petitioner gave incorrect answers, Waze's plea read.

Waze, in his plea, claimed that he is a whistle blower and has been falsely implicated in a series of criminal cases consequent to political vendetta arising out of the shocking revelations disclosed by him in the public domain through his senior officer.

The former policeman has claimed that he had confided in his senior officer about a series of demands made by Deshmukh, and based on this, the senior officer had written to the state government on March 20, 2021, following which a one-member committee headed by retired Justice K U Chandiwal was formed.