Don’t need Waze as approver in case against Anil Deshmukh: ED

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday withdrew its consent allowing dismissed police officer Sachin Waze to become an approver in a money laundering case registered against former home minister Anil Deshmukh and others.

The agency told a special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court that it had enough evidence against all the accused and hence, there was no need for an approver in the case.

Waze has already been allowed to be an approver in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (NCB) corruption case against Deshmukh, an NCP leader. The special CBI court had on June 1 last year granted him conditional pardon.

Eight days later, on June 9, Waze applied to the special PMLA court seeking permission to turn an approver in the money laundering case. The ED subsequently told the court that it had no objection to Waze’s plea. The court had, however, kept the plea on hold for over a year and questioned the agency as to how Waze, the prime accused in the case, could be made an approver.

Deshmukh came under scanner over corruption allegations after former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh in a letter to then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on March 20, 2021, alleged that Deshmukh had instructed certain police officers, including Waze, to collect ₹100 crore every month from bars and restaurants in the city.

The CBI had on April 21, 2021, booked Deshmukh and others after conducting a preliminary enquiry, pursuant to orders issued by the Bombay high court, into Singh’s allegations.

Investigation by the ED revealed that Waze had, accordingly, collected ₹4.70 crore from owners of orchestra bars between December 2020 and January 2021, and handed over the “extorted money” to Deshmukh’s personal assistant Kundan Shinde, also an accused in the case.

Waze is also the prime accused in the Antilia explosives scare and Mansukh Hiran murder cases.