Dharamsala, December 7
Ten months after Rs 1 crore was confiscated from a SUV at Himachal’s Mehatpur barrier, the Una Police today presented a chargesheet against nine accused and named 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorjee as one of the conspirators in the case.

Police officials said the Karmapa was named as one of the conspirators in the case under Section 120-B of the IPC as he was in the know of the entire developments.

The Karmapa heads one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism — the Karma Kagyu sect — and is considered as the most-revered Lama living in exile after the Dalai Lama.

The nine other accused are KP Bharadwaj, a Dharamsala-based businessman and owner of the SUV from which Rs 1 crore was seized, his driver Sanjog Dutt, who was driving the vehicle, Ashutosh, who was in the vehicle, Corporation Bank manager Davinder Kumar, Karma Garchen Trust members Ragjey Choshang, Gompo Tsering and Tenzin Namgyal and two Delhi-based Tibetan money changers Rigzin Vagmo and her husband Karma Kukaekhampa.

The chargesheet has been filed under sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 489-C and 120-B of the IPC. The accused have been charged with carrying ill-gotten money, entering into an illegal land deal and producing fake official documents.

As the police had failed to trace the source of the money, it is treating it as hawala money, as per the chargesheet.

The money was paid by Karma Garchen Trust office-bearers to KP Bharadwaj’s driver in Delhi on account of a land deal affected between them at Dharamsala.

Though the Himachal Government had not given permission under Section 118 of the Land Tenancy Act, the accused received money from the Karmapa’s trust on account of the land deal. The police also suspects that the land was undervalued.

Another serious charge against the accused is that they were carrying a letter issued by Davinder Kumar, the then manager of the Corporation Bank at Ambala. In the letter, Kumar had stated that KP Bharadwaj was known to him and he had come to deposit Rs 1 crore in his bank but since it was closed, he could not.

The police, however, said in the chargesheet that Kumar issued the letter even before the transfer of money was affected between Bharadwaj’s driver and officials of the Karma Garchen Trust at Delhi and the letter was just being used to facilitate the transfer of money.