Dehradun, December 24
It matters little that Abdul Karim Telgi is behind bars. His continues to be in business in Uttarakhand. His influence is so strong that the police probe into the source of the non-judicial stamp papers used by three property dealers in a land registration case here is at a dead-end.
Telgi’s machinations came to light during the pendency of a court case regarding to alleged fraudlent registration of a prime property valed at Rs 1 crore in Nevada village near Haridwar Road. As per the sale deed documents, three persons identified as Rajinder Singh Bisht, Rahul Ahluwalia and Chandershekhar Mamgain attached 70 stamp papersheets of Rs 500 denomination worth Rs 35,000 were shown to have been issued by the district treasury on February 12, 2004.
Interestingly, the information obtained under RTI by complainant Suraj Bhan of Lunia Mohhala, Dehradun, has revealed that no stamp paper was sold to these persons by the trasury on the said date.
Chief treasury Officer PC Khare also gave the names of the seven persons barring these in writing to the Investigation Officer Sanjay Pathak of Kotwali police station who has since been divested from the responsibility on the request by the complainant. All the seven were actually issued stamp sheets of Rs 20,000 denominations to each one of them.
“Something is really fishy about this. The police must make in-depth investigation to find out the actual source of stamp papaers in question as it amounts to loss of revenue to the state exchequer,” said Khare. The present IO Jeeto Kamboj was not available for comments as she was said to be out of the state on some assignment.
As cases have been reported in the past about fraudlent property registrations in the state, sources said, this case should not be treated as an isolated one and impartial investigation was required to bring out the truth regarding genuineness of the stamp papers used in them.
Sources did not rule out a nexus as in light of alleged pressure exerted by a well-known BJP leader, the police failed to act effectively against the alleged accused despite overwhelming evidence. Of the three named in the FIR lodged on September 18,2008, the police arrested Bisht and Ahluwalia. While the latter was allegedly let off for the reasons best known to the police, Bisht was released on bail.
Following revelations under RTI, the complainant approached the then district magistrate (DM) for detailed enquiry and action. Subsequently, the enquiry report prepared by by ADM (Finance) Vinod Kumar Suman said the ambiguity over sourcing of the said stamp papers obtained from Treasury could be cleared only on production of the original ones. But strangely, the trio failed to appear with the same before Suman despite prior notice. More startlingly, the report suspected the mandatory record of other stamp sheets sold to the trio by four licensed stamp vendors was either missing or destroyed. Of the total Rs.79,000 payable as stamp duty, sheets worth Rs.44,000 were purchased from these vendors. When asked, the present DM Amit Singh Negi said “he would get the matter checked”.
