A special Mumbai court on Wednesday agreed to allow dismissed Mumbai police officer Sachin Vaze become an approver in the corruption case registered against former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Vaze approached the special court last week seeking permission to testify against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Deshmukh, who is in jail after he was forced to step down in April 2021 after being named in one case each by CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
CBI, during its submission before the court, backed Vaze’s request “in order to unravel the truth and to prove the role and complicity of other accused persons in commission of offences”.
“If accused Sachin Vaze volunteers to make full and true disclosure of the whole circumstances within knowledge about his involvement/role and the involvement of other accused persons in the case, this Hon’ble Court by imposing just and proper conditions, may pass an appropriate order for making him an approver in the interest of justice in accordance with law,” the agency said.
Vaze has also asked ED to let him become an approver in a money laundering case against Deshmukh. Apart from the two cases against Deshmukh, in which Vaze was the co-accused, the former assistant commissioner of police is also the prime accused in the Antilia explosives scare, the related murder of Thane trader Mansukh Hiran, and the custodial death of Khwaja Yunus, an accused in the 2002 Ghatkopar bomb blast case.
The CBI case in which he was allowed to turn approver was registered by the agency on April 21, 2021 following a letter by former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on March 20 that year . In the letter, Singh alleged that Deshmukh instructed certain Mumbai police officers, including Vaze, to collect ₹100 crore every month from Mumbai’s bars and restaurants.
The agency told the court that Vaze’s confessional statement has already been deposited in a sealed envelope. “The role of Vaze is that of an accomplice/facilitator in the commission of offence. Moreover, he is aware of the modus operandi adopted by the other accused persons in collection of bribe and also has first-hand knowledge about the role of the other accused persons in the commission of the offence,” the agency said.
Apart from allegations of corruption and extortion from bar owners, CBI cited as dubious Vaze’s reinstatement in the service in 2020after remaining under suspension for over 15 years. Vaze was suspended in March 2004 after the state CID charged him and three other policemen for the custodial death of Yunus. Vaze resigned from service in November 2007 but was reinstated in June 2020during Param Bir Singh’s tenure as Mumbai police commissioner.
Vaze was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on March 13, 2021, in connection with the Antilia explosives scare and Hiran’s murder, and has been lodged in Taloja jail. The dismissed police officer was formally arrested in the corruption case against Deshmukh last month.
In its probe into the corruption case, ED alleged that Vaze, on Deshmukh’s instructions, called a meeting of bar owners and collected ₹4.7 crore from them between December 2020 and February 2021.
On February 25, 2021, a car was found abandoned near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s South Mumbai residence with lose genatine sticks and a note threatening to kill members of his family. On March 5, the body of the vehicle owner, Thane based car accessories shop owner, Mansukh Hiran was found dumped in a creek.
Vaze will now be treated as a prosecution witness in the case, said his lawyer, advocate Raunak Naik.
HT reached out to Deshmukh’s lawyer Indrapal Singh for a response but he did not revert to repeated calls.
