HC grants conditional bail to ACB officials

Aurangabad, July 20:

The Aurangabad Bench of Bombay High Court's Justice Sandeep Shinde has granted anticipatory bail to police inspector (Anti Corruption Bureau) Rajkumar Saisingh Padvi and his writer Pradeep Dilip Veer, who was booked, for demanding a bribe of Rs 50,000. The court ordered the police to sanction their bails on a surety bond of Rs 25,000 each on arrests.

They were accused of demanding a bribe from a sectional engineer (water supply) of Gevrai in Beed district, Shaikh Samad, who was booked in the case of bribery. Hence Padvi and Veer to evade their arrests filed anticipatory bail applications.

Nature of complaint

According to the complaint lodged by a hotel owner from Shahgad, Jamaluddin Noor Muhammed, a complaint of accepting a bribe was lodged against his brother and the sectional engineer (of water supply department) Shaikh Samad, on April 5, 2021. Padvi was the investigating officer and he demanded a bribe of Rs 50,000 to extend support in the case. As evidence, the audio clip of the conversation which was provided by the talathi, Dadasaheb Andhale, was submitted in the High Court.

Argument in the court

One year ago, an offence of accepting bribe was registered against the talathi. He offered a bribe to Padvi against helping him in the case, but the police inspector refused and made the complaint against him with the Director General (ACB), on October 16, 2020. The offences are registered against Padvi with an intention to frame him in the false crime. There is no complaint against him in his service of 17 years. If the police custody remand (PCR) is awarded to the applicants, their images will be maligned in society. Besides, there is nothing to seize from their possession, argued the veteran lawyer Rajendra Deshmukh.