The Hindu : They are trying to fix me: Bhujbal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 20, 2003

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They are trying to fix me: Bhujbal

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI Dec. 19. "I am being named, now by Abdul Karim Telgi's lawyer Abdul Rehman, and till yesterday by the entire Opposition in Maharashtra simply because I made sure that the scamster was exposed by diligent investigation,'' the Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, said today.

Talking to The Hindu from Nagpur over telephone, Mr. Bhujbal said that it is good this lawyer met Mr. L. K. Advani, Deputy Prime Minister. "Mr. Advani has a huge machinery at his command. He should investigate this conspiracy by others to escape culpability and try and pin me down in the Telgi scam.''

Satellite television networks today carried Mr. Rehman's allegation of Mr. Bhujbal's involvement in the scam of fake stamps and stamp papers allegedly run by Telgi. For days, the Opposition here accused him likewise, on the strength of a letter written by a police official arrested for going soft on Telgi.

The scandal surfaced in 1995 and since then several cases have not been investigated and, where investigated, in a cursory manner.

The Shiv Sena and the BJP were running the Government then. "Only I had it probed,'' Mr. Bhujbal says but it still does not explain why he gave a "clean chit" to Mr. R. S. Sharma, then Mumbai Police Commissioner, despite fingers being pointed out by a probe team set up by Mr. Bhujbal himself.

The Opposition has accused Mr. Bhujbal on the strength of a letter written by a police official arrested for going soft on Telgi. It alleges that Mr. Bhujbal is involved as he let Mr. Sharma off the hook.

The Police Assistant Sub-Inspector, Dilip Kamath, first wrote a letter to the Maharashtra Governor, Mohammed Fazal, from a Pune jail saying that he went slow, rendered favours to Telgi "at the behest of Mr. Bhujbal and his nephew, Sameer Bhujbal."

Even before the letter reached the Raj Bhavan, a photocopy surfaced with the Opposition for being read out in the legislature.

Yesterday, the episode dramatically turned with Mr. Bhujbal sending a sealed letter to the Special Investigation Team, headed by a former Director-General of Anti-Corruption Bureau, S. S. Puri.

The contents are not known but sources say that it was another letter from Mr. Kamath saying he was pressured to implicate Mr. Bhujbal. A copy of the letter, "written to someone,'' reached Mr. Bhujbal who has forwarded it to the SIT.

There were inconsistencies within the letter to the Governor, which the Opposition used with telling effect. It was dated November 30 but the "outward date'' on it was November 29, raising eyebrows.

It also took more than two weeks to reach the Governor which was seen by the Opposition's Narayan Rane (Shiv Sena) and Nitin Gadkari and Gopinath Munde (both BJP) as evidence that its transit was being sabotaged.

The earlier reluctance to let the Central Bureau of Investigation probe the scam was seen as being driven by fears — it was the burden of the Opposition accusation — that an impartial probe would nail political entities. Much later, responding to the Governor's suggestions Maharashtra moved the High Court for a CBI probe.

But the High Court, which is monitoring the probe by Mr. Puri, asked the State Government to await a verdict of the Supreme Court which is hearing a petition for a CBI probe into the multi-State racket.

The Supreme Court is due to hear it on January 5, next.

Mr. Bhujbal persistently under attack by the Opposition comprising the Shiv Sena and the BJP for going soft on the scamster and whose resignation has been demanded — at one point, in an appeal to the Governor, even his arrest — said he was considering a defamation suit, first against Telgi's lawyer.

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