The Hindu : Governor may brief Advani on stamp paper scam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 12, 2003

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Other States - Maharashtra

Governor may brief Advani on stamp paper scam

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI NOV. 11. The Maharashtra Governor, Mohamed Fazal, is expected to brief the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, on the demand for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the multi-crore fake stamp paper racket run by Abdul Karim Telgi, which has seen the arrest of several policemen for allegedly being accomplices.

This follows a plea by the Opposition, which asked Mr. Fazal to "dismiss" the Deputy Chief Minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, for his inability to keep the probe on a tight leash, which led to the High Court getting involved to supervise the probe following a public interest litigation petition filed by social worker Anna Hazare.

The scam run by Telgi spread across 19 States, and conservatively estimated at Rs. 31,000 crores, though Mr. Bhujbal conceded, on the strength of the probe so far, that it was worth Rs. 3,000 crores in Maharashtra alone.

The Maharashtra Government was reluctant to ask for a CBI probe saying that its own team was good enough and when the matter was being supervised by the High Court, "now there is nothing that the State can do".

The Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, appears uncomfortable at the manner in which the police is seen increasingly more as an accomplice in the racket.

Not only has an Inspector-General of Police, Sridhar Vagal, been booked under the Maharashtra Organised Crime Control Act, but the Mumbai's Police Commissioner, R.S. Sharma, has been questioned for two days by a former Director-General of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, who has been appointed to monitor the Special Investigation Team and also report on Mr. Sharma's alleged laxity when the probe commenced in Pune when he was Police Commissioner.

Mr. Shinde said today that there was no possibility of handing over the probe to the CBI on two counts. One, the probe was being conducted well now by the SIT and two, the SIT was operating under the direct supervision of the High Court, which has appointed a retired official and given him back the status of a police official to facilitate the probe.

Mr. Bhujbal, who holds the Home portfolio, seems unhappy that policeman after policeman is being arrested, denting the image of the department badly. "What can I do? If there is a report that these people have done something wrong from the department, I can act," he said on Monday. Apparently, he is waiting for a report on the conduct of Mr. Sharma when the scam surfaced in Pune.

Shinde meets Fazal

PTI reports:

Mr. Shinde today met the Governor and apprised him of developments in the multi-crore fake stamp paper scam in which eight police officials, including a Joint Commissioner of Police, have been arrested. Mr. Shinde, who returned from Delhi this morning, headed straight to the Raj Bhawan and met the Governor. The Chief Minister was earlier scheduled to meet the Governor in the afternoon but advanced his meeting in view of the aggressive stance adopted on the Telgi case by the Sena-BJP combine.

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Governor may brief Advani on stamp paper scam