Three MLAs, apart from Girish Mahajan, lodged complaints against Anil Deshmukh: CBI FIR

MUMBAI: The First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and four others for allegedly trying to implicate Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Girish Mahajan in a false case in 2020 has revealed that three more Maharashtra legislators had lodged similar complaints with the central agency.
Apart from Mahajan, the central agency also received complaints from BJP MLAs Mangesh Chavan, Sanjay Kute and Jaykumar Rawal after it began the investigation in 2022. The CBI lodged the case after a two-year preliminary inquiry, which originated from a pen drive handed over by senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis to the Maharashtra assembly speaker in March 2022.
Apart from Deshmukh, Pravin Chavan, a special public prosecutor at the time, private individual Vijay Bhaskarrao Patil, and two police officers—Poornima Gaikwad, deputy commissioner pf Police, Zone 3, Pune, and Sushma Chavan, assistant commissioner of police and the investigating officer of the case—are named in the CBI’s FIR.
The FIR revealed that the CBI had received complaints from the three legislators, alleging that the pen drive submitted by Fadnavis contained videos showing individuals talking about planting evidence to frame not just Mahajan but also others like them in false cases.
The videos showed Chavan plotting and drawing up conspiracies in collusion with high-ranking police officials to get “patently false cases registered against BJP leaders,” CBI sources said. The process included drafting FIRs, tutoring witnesses, arranging cash payments and instructing investigating officers.
The videos also showed the accused discussing how to implicate people in false cases, like planting a knife, propelling a police raid, showing involvement in the narcotics trade and preparing a tailor-made MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) case, sources said.
The CBI’s preliminary inquiry revealed that Chavan had allegedly conspired with Patil, director of a cooperative educational institute in Jalgaon, and Deshmukh to get a zero FIR registered on December 9, 2020, at the Nimbhora police station in Jalgaon to falsely implicate the BJP leaders in an alleged incident that occurred in Pune in 2018.
The registration of the case allegedly was meant to wrest control over Patil’s institute, the Jalgaon Zilla Maratha Vidya Prasarak Sahakari Samaj. Subsequently, the zero FIR was registered and transferred to the Kothrud police station in Pune, the CBI sources added. Patil, Gaikwad, Pravin Chavan and Sushma Chavan fabricated witness statements to falsely implicate the BJP leaders and other innocent people, according to the CBI’s FIR.
The four accused, along with Deshmukh and other unknown public servants, were booked under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with sections 167 (public servants framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), and 211 (false charges of offence made with intent to injure) of the Indian Penal Code.
Patil’s complaint resulted in the registration of a case against Mahajan and 28 others under IPC and MCOCA charges, which was later transferred to the CBI. The central agency in January this year closed the case, saying the case registered against Mahajan could not be substantiated.
Pravin Chavan, when contacted on Thursday by HT, denied the allegations, saying, “ It is a false, politically motivated case.” Deshmukh had denied the allegations in a post on X, saying the CBI had filed “another baseless case” against him.