Former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh was on Wednesday questioned for eight hours by the CBI conducting the Preliminary Enquiry (PE) on orders of the Bombay High Court in connection with the allegations of corruption raised against him by former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh, an official said.

Deshmukh denied the allegations raised against him by Singh during questioning and told the officers that they were an attempt to malign the image of the state government, sources said.