The Hindu : Somashekar flays Govt. on stamp paper racket probe

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 11, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Somashekar flays Govt. on stamp paper racket probe

By Our Special Correspondent

Bangalore Dec. 10. The Floor Leader of the AIPJD in the Legislative Assembly, B. Somashekar, has alleged that contrary to the claims made by the State Government, a number of accused and abettors in the stamp paper scam were yet to be interrogated leave alone filing chargesheets against them.

Mr. Somashekar, a former Minister who introduced the novel scheme of registration on white paper to discard the use of stamp paper in 1999, is upset that the Government has not taken serious action in implementing the novel scheme.

He had come up with the concept of registering on white paper following the recovery of fake stamp papers in Madikeri during the course of a raid in 1999. "No action has been taken so far even in this case," he says.

Mr. Somashekar told The Hindu that the STAMPIT, which has been constituted to probe the stamp paper scam, had raided over 15 places in Bangalore over two years ago and recovered fake stamp papers.

Despite the large seizure of stamp papers, the police had neither picked up the accused nor their abettors apparently "on directions from certain vested interests", he said.

Mr. Somashekar said the Congress Governments in Maharashtra and Karnataka were against handing over the stamp paper scam investigation to the CBI since "the Congress was obviously the main beneficiary. The State Government's claim that it had discarded the use of stamp papers from April 2003 was `hollow' since the amendments to the Karnataka Stamp Act were effected in 1999. The present Government went slow in implementing the amendments for obvious reasons and has now merely reduced the quantum of stamp paper indent to the Union Government. Under the Central Act, the State Government cannot ban the use of stamp papers and it was for the Centre to do so".

The Additional Director-General of Police and Chief of STAMPIT, R. Srikumar, told The Hindu that the special police team had raided over 15 places in Bangalore and had taken follow-up action.

Apart from Telgi there were 54 people in its custody and nearly 600 people had been questioned and 700 documents collected.

"Necessary action had been taken and some more action is in the offing", he said.

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