The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Wednesday, July 23, 2003, Chandigarh, India

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90 pc stamp papers fake, says police
J.T. Vishnu
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 22
Are the judicial papers purchased by the people at the time of buying either immovable or movable property and now lying inside their lockers genuine or fake?

Well, according to the experts and the police officials investigating a nationwide racket, 90 per cent of such papers sold to people are fake and an equivalent number are still in circulation in various states.

This information was communicated to the law and order machinery in the country by the Union Home Ministry recently. The ministry is closely monitoring the investigations. In fact, experts have advised the government to set up separate cells in every state and ask the public to get the veracity of their judicial papers checked.

If the papers are found to be fake, then the government should provide them with the original papers free of cost. Additional Director-General of Police R. Srikumar, heading a stamp investigating team set up by the Karnataka Government, told The Tribune that the seizure of fake stamps in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Chandigarh and Gujarat indicated the dimension of the racket.

As of now, the maximum seizure has been made in Maharashtra and the total seizure of fake stamps and stamp papers by the police all over the country is estimated at a whopping Rs 3,500 crore, he added.

“Although the fraud had been reported over the past few years, investigations gained momentum only after setting up of the team in January, 2002, Mr Srikumar said.

Nine chargesheets have been filed against 44 persons. The Karnataka Government has also set up a special court to ensure speedy trial of the case.

Some cases are being investigated by the CBI. Mr Srikumar said Abdul Kareem Laad Saab Telgi of Karnataka, and now a resident of Mumbai, is the kingpin and mainly responsible for a large-scale counterfeiting of non-judicial and judicial stamp papers as well as other stamps. Even embossed and franked stamps were being counterfeited. Telgi had told the police that he had employed several hundreds of persons across the country for this purpose.

Since other gangs were also involved in the circulation of fake stamps, the police said the estimated number of persons involved in it could be a huge. The police also came to know about the involvement of certain officials of the government’s Nashik press and other agencies.

Fake stamps were sold in Punjab, Haryana too
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 22
It was in July last year that the use of counterfeit stamps and non-judicial stamp papers for official purposes in several central government organisations and the Revenue Departments of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh was detected.

The Chandigarh police had followed leads given by the Delhi police in tracking down the roots of the nationwide racket in the region. It had sent the alarm bells ringing in the Department of Posts, various financial institutions, including banks and insurance companies, estate offices and Revenue Departments.

Officials of various government agencies, which use stamps and non-judicial stamp papers in bulk, were shocked over the seizure of counterfeit stamps and papers worth Rs 2.36 crore by the Chandigarh police as many of them maintained that they had no “scientific mechanism to check authenticity of stamps and revenue stamps”.

A Tata Safari with fake share transfer stamps, insurance stamps, postage stamps and revenue stamps was intercepted by the Chandigarh police on July 28 last year. One of the occupants of the vehicle, Gopinath Nair, told the police that he was instructed by Telgi to shift the consignment from Chandigarh to New Delhi. Others in the vehicle were Sanjay Arora of R.K. Puram (New Delhi) and Sohail Kumar (Balgaum, Karnataka). Subsequently, the police tracked down their local contact, Harmesh Singh, of Maloya.

The Chandigarh police had then claimed that the kingpin of the gang, Abdul Karim Telgi, used to circulate counterfeit judicial and non-judicial stamps, postal stamps, adhesive stamps, and non-judicial stamp papers used for registration of all kinds of documents, besides insurance and banking.

Mr S.S. Sidhu, the then Station House Officer of the Industrial Area police station, remembers minute details of the case. On July 28, he says, he received a call about the gang. A subsequent naka at Makhan Majra led to the arrest of Gopinath Nair, Sanjay Arora and Rajesh Kumar. They had come in a hired Tata Safari and were carrying fake stamps worth Rs 2, 30, 58, 653. Two of their accomplices — Sachin Ogle and Sarfraz Saudagar — who were staying at Hotel Shivam, opposite Chandigarh Railway Station, however, managed to escape.

During their subsequent interrogation, they revealed that they had set up an office in the name of Quick Services in Sector 20 where they had employed Harmesh Singh of Maloya village. It was at the instance of Harmesh that the police reached the rented godown of the gang at Khuda Lahora from where another consignment of fake stamps worth Rs 6.01 lakh was seized. The gang had opened an account in Corporation Bank in Sector 8 on Madhya Marg which Harmesh used to operate.

Since Sachin Ogle and Sarfraz Saudagar could not be arrested, they were declared proclaimed offenders in the case. All four arrested then are still in jail and facing trial now. The next hearing in the case is fixed for August 23.

In fact when the multicrore scam came to the notice of the authorities here, they expressed their helplessness and shock. Since even the local police had no “mechanism” to distinguish between “genuine and counterfeit stamps,” it was why all seized stamps worth Rs 2.36 crore were immediately sent to Maharashtra for verification.

Subsequently, Government Security Press, Nasik, confirmed that all stamps were “fake”.

The racket had been going on for more than a decade before Abdul Karim Telgi landed in the Andhra Pradesh police net in November, 2001. Since then, he had been wanted by almost all states and union territories where he had spread his network of sale agents.

Some of Telgi’s men, like Abdul Waheed, Sadashiv and Sachin were subsequently arrested in Hyderabad. One of his accomplices, Hameed, was arrested in Mumbai.