‘Param Bir Singh is police chief No. 1’

Former CP Parambir Singh is one of the main accused in the case

The Mumbai Crime Branch Unit 11 has filed a chargesheet against former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh and three others in an extortion case involving hotelier Vimal Agarwal.

The 1,895-page chargesheet was filed in the court of the Additional Chef Metropolitan Magistrate. The statements of a total of 36 witnesses were taken in the chargesheet, including that of an ACP, police inspector and constable.

The three other accused in the chargesheet are suspended APIs Waze, Alpesh Patel and Sumit Singh. According to the special public prosecutor Shekhar Jagtap, the two other wanted accused mentioned in the chargesheet are Riyaz Bhati and Vinay Singh.

One officer in his statement has identified Singh as "number one". According to his statement, during the meeting with hoteliers, Sachin Waze told the officer that Singh was "number one" and he had given him a daily target of collecting Rs 2 crore.

A witness who is also an accomplice said that Vinay and Bhati went to the hotel and said that they worked for Singh and Waze. "They took Rs 5 lakh as extortion. After raiding the hotel, they went to the CIU office and gave Rs 2 lakh to Waze."

Jagtap said they had not taken prior sanction for filing the chargesheet against Singh, as the Supreme Court states that protection of public servants under Section 197 CrPc was only for cases in which the person was made accused of something while discharging his/her official duty. "Extorting money was not Parambir's official duty."