Appreciably, again, the Supreme Court has turned down a plea by former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh to thwart a CBI probe into the huge bribe allegation raised against him by former Mumbai Police Commissioner, Param Bir Singh. Deshmukh moved SC after the Mumbai High Court took a serious note of the corruption allegation and asked the CBI to probe the matter. Rejecting Deshmukh’s plea to quash the high court order, a bench of the apex court too said the matter is a really serious one.
The more one goes into the case, the more it shocks. The police chief wrote to the state chief minister saying the home minister was asking the cops to collect amounts as high as Rs 100 crore a month from bars, restaurants and the like from the western metropolis. As investigations into the case of an explosives-laden car found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s home moved forward, it turned out that a senior Mumbai cop was among those involved and he’s under arrest. The idea therein too, it appeared prima facie, was an attempt at extortion. The home minister’s call to police for “collections” and the car explosives case might be inter-linked.
The point to note is that the home minister might not have acted on his own. His party boss, Sharad Pawar, was bending over backwards to play down the whole incident and even proposed an inquiry by his old chum and retired cop, Julio Rebeiro, so that the things would cool down. But Rebeiro said he would not touch the case with a barge pole. It is against this backdrop that the Mumbai High Court and the apex court have taken a “serious” view of the matter.
Considering the state of affairs in this country today, and keeping in mind the influences that work at various levels, it is likely this case too will not reach anywhere. The minister tendered his resignation and chances are that he would be exonerated and return to the post. People are losing their faith in the system. A home minister asking the police force to extort such a huge amount every month would mean that ultimately the people will have to cough out much more money for the services they avail from the bars and restaurants. Bar owners who pay the bribe will not allow themselves to suffer the loss; they will pass it on to customers.
The spectre of corruption is worsening by the day. Those who run the nation from the front must, first and foremost, hang their heads in shame and not just one minister or political party.