MUMBAI: The former chief of the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and presently police commissioner in Pune, Jayant Umranikar, is in hot waters.
According to the Bombay High Court ruling, Umranikar has misappropriated government funds.
Hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on Thursday filed by lawyer Vineet Kanchan on behalf of Citizens’ Organization for Public Opinion, an NGO, that has charged that Umranikar has indulged in corrupt practices by seeking favors from criminals, a division bench consisting of Justice Bilal Nazki and Justice S.S. Shinde observed that Umranikar has misappropriated government funds.
The petition sought to show how Umranikar and his family traveled to New Delhi from Pune in 2006 on air tickets bought by Sanjay Randive, a Pune resident who runs a travel agency. It is to be noted that Randive was arrested by the state Criminal Investigation Department and sent to the police lockup in connection with a visa scam case in 2004.
The PIL also mentioned how the CID asked Randive to buy air tickets for their “top boss” to secure his bail. However, the state government lawyer Satish Borulkar told the court that Umranikar did not take any favors from Randive but had withdrawn the amount of Rs.56,000 from the “secret service fund” of the police and repaid it later.
The two judges rapped the government lawyer for his illogical arguments and said “It still amounts to misappropriation of public money. In our view, withdrawing money from the government funds for personal purpose implied misappropriation. Even though Umranikar had deposited back the withdrawn amount in the funds, using the government funds for personal reasons leads to misappropriating them.”
