The Hindu : Court fee stamp racket busted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Court fee stamp racket busted

By Our Staff Reporter

GUNTUR Sept. 9. The Guntur police on Tuesday busted a fake court-fee stamp racket and arrested seven persons on the charge of making and circulating them.

Addressing a press conference here today, the Superintendent of Police, Ravishankar Ayyanar, said that the police recovered counterfeit stamps which would have fetched the makers a sum of Rs. 5.32 lakhs. Police also recovered fake court-fee stamps (special adhesive), judicial stamps and lawyer welfare stamps.

All the accused persons belong to Guntur district, while one of them belonged to Darsi in Prakasam district.

In fact, one of them was arrested by the Hyderabad North Zone task force police in March on the charges of committing a similar offence. The person, who hailed from Darsi, was also listed as an accused in that case along with a stamp vendor from Eluru, two persons from Kolkata and another printing press owner from Vijayawada. That case was being handled by the Marredpally police in the State capital. They recovered fake stamps which would have earned Rs. 2.25 lakhs, if circulated, from the possession of those who were arrested. The arrested person confessed to having already circulated fake stamps in different parts of the State with the help of some agents and earned a sum of Rs. 7.50 lakhs.

One of the two accused persons belonging to Kolkata was identified to be the supplier of the paper used for making the stamps. That Kolkata-based person was listed as an accused person in many a similar case in Bangam police station of 24 Paraganas district in West Bengal.

With the help of their inter-State contacts, they established connections with some stamp vendors in Guntur and Prakasam districts and began circulating the fake stamps. However, based on a complaint given by the Principal District Judge of Prakasam district, the District Registrar in Ongole suspended a stamp vendor. The stamps sold by him were sent to the Government press in Nasik through the Inspector-General of Stamps and Registration of Andhra Pradesh for verification of their correctness. The report was awaited.

Following his suspension, the stamp vendor got some fake rubber stamps made in the name of authorised vendors and began using them for selling counterfeit court-fee stamps.

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