Sharma: Probe protest

Mumbai, Jan. 7: Another episode of the serial police story in the stamp paper scandal unfolded today with the arrest of a deputy commissioner during whose tenure the jailed mastermind was given access to the pleasures of a life in liberty.

Deputy commissioner Sawant was arrested after he was summoned to the special investigation team’s Worli office for interrogation. The high-profile Sawant was deputy commissioner in the crime branch when Telgi was in the “custody” of Mumbai police for 85 days. Telgi was found to have skipped jail then and remained in his plush flat at Cuffe Parade and a hotel in Mumbai.

He was also found to have bribed a number of crime branch officers who were caught waiting on him. During the same period, he was taken by the police on pleasure-cum-business trips to Goa and Hyderabad.

After the scandal broke, Sawant was transferred to a less prestigious position in the special branch.

Dawood law backfires

Former Mumbai police chief R.S. Sharma has challenged in court his arrest under a stringent law that had been invoked during his tenure against gangs like Dawood Ibrahim’s D Company.

Arrested in the fake stamp paper case, the fallen top cop is now lodged in a Pune jail.

Accepting Sharma’s petition against the tough organised crime law — the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) — Bombay High Court today asked the state government to file an affidavit.

The court asked the government to reply to another complaint of Sharma that contested the appointment of former director-general S.S. Puri as the chief of the team probing the scam in Maharashtra.

Sharma also wanted the court to restrain the investigation team from extending his custody, but Justices V.G. Palshikar and P.V. Kakade deferred a decision to January 15.

The probe team has justified Sharma’s arrest under the stringent law by claiming that he had “aided and abetted the organised crime syndicate” running the stamp paper racket.

But Sharma’s lawyers, V.R. Manohar and S.R. Chitnis, contended in the court that the offences for which he has been charged do not fall under the law.

“The charges levelled against Sharma of not transferring negligent cops or those not performing their duties would not be covered within the scope and definition of Section 3, which deals with conspiring with organised crime syndicate and abetting offences,’’ the lawyers said.

Sharma has cited a technical reason to claim that the appointment of Puri, who has earned wide acclaim for the way he has handled the probe so far, is invalid. He has contended that since Puri had retired form service, he could not be given the powers of a director-general of police. On the back of this argument, Sharma’s legal team has moved the court to quash Puri’s appointment as well as the investigation carried out by him.

Sharma’s lawyers told the court that he had an unblemished record in service and it was he who, as Pune commissioner, filed the initial FIR in the Telgi case.