Considering Waze’s contradictory stand before the Justice Chandiwal Commission wherein he denied all the allegations against Deshmukh and his controversial past as a police officer, the court declined to rely solely on his statements.
“In my view, the material, prima facie, renders it unsafe to place reliance on the statement of Mr. Sachin Waze, a co-accused, that cash amount was collected and delivered to Mr. Kundan Shinde at the instructions of the Applicant (Deshmukh),” the court observed.
“In the least, the tenure of Mr. Sachin Waze as a police officer has been controversial. He was under suspension for almost 16 years. He came to be arrested by NIA in C.R.No.35 of 2021 for the alleged murder of a person in connection with the occurrence of a gelatin laden SUV. His statements were recorded by ED whilst he remained in the custody of jurisdictional Court,” the bench added.
Additionally, the benchnoted that Param Bir Singh and Waze’s claims about Deshmukh making money over police transfers and postings to be “hear-say.”
Both Waze and Singh had said that they had only ‘learnt or heard’ that the money changed hands.
Moreover, no part of the charge sheet indicated that Deshmukh had purchased a particular property with this money.
“These statements ex-facie cannot bear weight of the allegation of generation of proceeds of crime out of the alleged predicate offence of exercise of influence over the transfers and postings of the police officials. These statements ex-facie lack the element of certainty as to the source, time and place. They prima facie appears to be hear-say,” the court said.
Source: https://www.thequint.com/news/law/bombay-high-court-detailed-order-on-anil-deshmukhs-bail-calls-sachin-waze-unreliable
