A CBI report allegedly giving clean chit to Anil Deshmukh was leaked on Saturday (FILE)
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Thursday claimed that a leaked CBI report which purportedly gave a clean chit to former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh in a corruption case was genuine.
The Central agency has now claimed that the report was leaked after a bribe was paid and it has registered a criminal case in this regard, NCP leader and Maharashtra minority affairs minister Nawab Malik told reporters.
But the Central Bureau of Investigation is not stating that the report itself was fake, he said.
"To save its face, it is saying that the report had been managed," Mr Malik alleged.
"If the report is presented in the court, Anil Deshmukh will get reprieve. Whatever is happening is all politically motivated," he added.
The CBI on Thursday said it has arrested NCP leader Mr Deshmukh's lawyer Anand Daga for allegedly trying to subvert a Bombay High Court-directed preliminary enquiry against the former Maharashtra minister.
It has also arrested CBI sub-inspector Abhishek Tiwari for allegedly receiving bribe from Daga, it said.
A report of the preliminary enquiry purportedly giving clean chit to Mr Deshmukh was leaked on Saturday night. The CBI started a probe into the leak and claimed later that findings of the enquiry had been influenced.
The Bombay high court had directed the agency to start a preliminary inquiry while hearing a public interest litigation on allegations of corruption leveled by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh against Deshmukh.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)