The commission investigating corruption allegations against former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh today cancelled a bailable warrant against ex-Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
The commission took the step once Singh appeared before Justice KU Chandiwal during the day. The one-member panel further asked the former top officer to deposit ₹15,000 in the chief minister’s relief fund within a week for not appearing before it earlier.
The commission was formed in March this year to probe the allegations levelled by Singh against the then home minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader.
Singh, through his lawyers, filed an affidavit before the commission stating that neither does he have any evidence to produce before it nor does he want to cross-examine any witness in the case.
The panel had earlier fined Singh on multiple occasions for failing to appear before it and issued a bailable warrant against him.
Singh, who was transferred from the post of Mumbai police commissioner in March in the aftermath of the Antilia bomb scare episode, had alleged that Deshmukh asked police officers to collect ₹100 crore a month from bars and restaurants in the city.
Declared absconding by a Mumbai court in an extortion case, Singh surfaced in public last week after six months and appeared before the Mumbai crime branch to record his statement.
The Supreme Court has granted him temporary protection from arrest. Singh appeared before Thane police on Friday in connection with an extortion case filed against him and some other police officials on the complaint of a local builder. The IPS officer is facing at least five extortion cases in Maharashtra.
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