CBI moves SC challenging grant of bail to Anil Deshmukh by Bombay HC

New Delhi, Dec 17 (Agency) CBI on Saturday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court’s order granting bail to former Maharashtra Home Minister, Anil Deshmukh for his alleged involvement in Rs 100 crore corruption case lodged by the investigating agency. The appeal filed by the CBI will be likely to come up for hearing in the Supreme Court very soon, may be within a week, keeping in view the sensitivity and importance of the case. “The appeal filed by the CBI will likely to come up for hearing in the Supreme Court within a week, seeing the importance and sensitivity of the Case,” a Registry official of the Supreme Court said. The Bombay High Court in its order on December 12, 2022, had given CBI 10 days time to appeal against the order of bail. The Bombay High Court on December 12 had granted bail to former home minister of Maharashtra, Anil Deshmukh’s in a case of corruption of Rs 100 crore by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

A single bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Justice M S Karnik, in its order, had directed Deshmukh to furnish a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh. It had said that the order will be effective after 10 days as CBI sought time to appeal against it before the Supreme Court. The bench had on Decmeber 12, granted bail to 73-year-old, Deshmukh, after considering his submissions that he is a “septuagenarian suffering from several serious ailments.” Deshmukh, lodged at Arthur Road Jail in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai since November 2, 2021, moved the Bombay High Court, after a special CBI court on October 21 had rejected his bail in the same case. The former State Home Minister of Maharashtra and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, Deshmukh, in his bail application filed before the Bombay High Court said that he is a septuagenarian suffering from several serious ailments which have virtually incapacitated him.

“I am a septuagenarian suffering from several serious ailments which have virtually incapacitated him to undertake ordinary pursuits of life without adequate medical treatment,” Deshmukh said in his bail application. “I am seeking benevolent indulgence of the court to admit him to regular bail in peculiar facts and circumstances which give rise to a reasonable inference that the entire proceedings are not only actuated with malice but also bereft of any legal sanctity,” Deshmukh in his bail application said.