Mumbai, Feb. 17: The stage is set for the arrest of fallen police hero Daya Nayak with the Supreme Court today refusing to interfere with a Bombay High Court order rejecting his anticipatory bail plea.

The apex court asked the “encounter specialist” to surrender before the trial court in Mumbai and told the judge to hear his bail application the day he surrenders.

Nayak is likely to give himself up on Saturday morning and immediately move a bail application.

A jubilant Vikas Gaikwad, additional commissioner with Mumbai police’s anti-corruption bureau (ACB), described the verdict as a “victory”. He indicated that Nayak was now certain to be arrested in the disproportionate assets case being pursued by the ACB.

Nayak had moved the apex court on February 13 challenging the rejection of bail by the high court, which had asked the sub-inspector and his associate Rajendra Padate to surrender within a week. The deadline expired this week but the court stayed his arrest till it passed a verdict on Friday.

The verdict would allow the ACB to question Nayak in custody on his alleged illegal assets, said to be worth Rs 100 crore. The bureau’s raids last month allegedly dug up Rs 41.75 lakh worth of unexplained assets possessed by Nayak and his wife Komal.

Nayak’s questioning could reveal information about his alleged illegal wealth, various businesses and links with heavyweight politicians, senior police officers and filmstars.

In the last four years, Mumbai police had carried out two inquiries against Nayak. One probed whether he had used his influence with filmstars and hotel owners to raise about Rs 1 crore to build a school in his mother’s memory in his native village of Yennehole in Karnataka’s Udupi.

Deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal gave him a clean chit after the report was submitted in 2003.

The second inquiry, by the crime branch, had been started under Bombay High Court orders. Ketan Tirodkar, a former friend of Nayak, had approached the court and accused the officer of associating with don Chhota Shakeel.

The probe allegedly threw light on Nayak’s shady links and illegal assets. The crime branch forwarded the report to the ACB.