Param Bir Singh not whistleblower, says Maharashtra govt affidavit in SC

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government has filed a counter-affidavit before the Supr-eme Court seeking dismissal of the special leave petition (SLP) submitted by former Mumbai police commissioner

Param Bir Singh

. The state said it had “no knowledge of any conversation having taken place” between him and incumbent director general of police Sanjay Pandey, and only learnt of the alleged exchange when Singh filed the petition.

Singh is no whistleblower, contrary to his claim in the SLP, the state said, adding that it has approved initiation of disciplinary proceedings against him under the All-India Service (Discipline and Appeal) Rules of 1969, and issued him the charges of alleged misconduct or misbehaviour and lists of documents and witnesses.

The SC bench of Justices S K Kaul and MM Sundresh will hear the SLP on Monday.

The state said the Bombay high court order of September 16, which Singh seeks to challenge before the SC, is correct. It added that HC’s dismissal of Singh’s plea against two preliminary enquiries in April—to be conducted by Pandey—was on grounds of maintainability. The state said validity or allegations of ‘malafides’ of the order to conduct preliminary enquiries falls within ambit of ‘service matters’ which can be challenged before Central Administrative Tribunal, as held by HC.

Singh, in a letter to CBI on April 19, alleged that Pandey had offered to mediate and advised him to withdraw his March 20 letter to the CM ag-ainst the then home minister Anil Deshmukh. The affidavit by V M Bhat, joint secretary of state home department, said such conversations, if any, are of “purely personal nature” and “not at the instance” of the state. In any case, the state said, CBI is probing the conversations as is evident from the summons it had issued on September 18 to the DGP, hence rendering the SLP infructuous.

The state’s affidavit, drafted by its advocate Rahul Chi-tnis, clarified that this conte-ntion is “without prejudice” to its petition pending before HC. It has sought transfer of the probe into CBI’s FIR against Deshmukh and unkno-wn others to a court-monitor-ed special investigation team on the grounds that the CBI probe “is biased as its director Subodh Jaiswal is a witness and a possible accused”.