Sachin Waze wants to turn approver in ED case against Anil Deshmukh

Anil Deshmukh and Sachin Waze. File Pic

Dismissed Mumbai police officer Sachin Waze has written a letter to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), saying he wants to turn an approver in a money laundering case registered by the central agency against former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and others.

Waze, currently in judicial custody in the Antilia bomb scare episode, is also an accused in the money laundering case in which Deshmukh has been arrested. "I am willing to make a truthful and voluntary disclosure of entire facts known to me regarding above-referred matter before a competent magistrate," Waze said in his letter to Tassin Sultan, Assistant Director, ED. "I request you to kindly treat this application for granting me pardon u/s 306, 307 of the CrPC," the former assistant police inspector (API) said. Sections 306 and 307 of the CrPC deal with powers of a court to grant pardon to an accomplice in a crime.

In a related development, the ED on Wednesday opposed Deshmukh's bail plea before a special court here, saying it's completely devoid of merits and liable to be rejected. On January 28, the special court took cognisance of a supplementary charge-sheet filed by the ED against Deshmukh (71), his two sons and others in the money laundering case.

The 7,000-page supplementary charge-sheet was filed in December last year. Prior to that, the probe agency had filed a charge-sheet against 14 accused, including Deshmukh's private secretary (an additional collector-rank officer) Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde, in the same case. Deshmukh was arrested by the ED on November 1 last year and is currently in judicial custody. The probe agency launched a probe against Deshmukh after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed an FIR against the NCP leader on April 21, 2021, for alleged corruption. The ED's case is that while serving as state home minister, Deshmukh, through then-assistant police inspector Waze (who was dismissed from service after arrest in the 'Antilia' bomb scare case last year), collected Rs 4.70 crore from various bars and restaurants in Mumbai.

The money was then laundered and routed to the Nagpur-based Shri Sai Shikshan Sansthan, an educational trust controlled by the Deshmukh family, the ED has claimed. Meanwhile, the ED opposed Deshmukh's bail plea in the special court. "It is further submitted that the Applicant is not entitled to interim bail as well as there is sufficient material against Deshmukh, which shows his complicity in the crime," the ED said in a reply to the former minister's bail application.

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