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By Anita Joshua
``They are trying to fix me'' — Chhagan Bhujbal
Responding to a discussion under Rule 193 on the scam, he said the Centre was willing to bring in legislation, if necessary, to validate the transactions made on fake paper. Mr. Singh did not refer to the allegations made by the Bharatiya Janata Party about the Congress "avoiding" a CBI enquiry into the scam in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Rather, he maintained that the Government had no problem whatsoever with who conducted the investigation, but the Centre must be taken into confidence. About the CBI's role in the investigations, Mr. Singh said it was necessitated by the "spread of the virus." Since the same person cannot be punished twice for the same offence, the CBI — which is investigating seven cases in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi — was inducted to avoid what in legal parlance was called "double jeopardy", he explained with some help on the legalese by the Law Minister, Arun Jaitley. With the discussion being held without any trace of the acrimony that has marked the political debate on the scam so far, the Minister sought to make good use of the mood, and urged the members — "without minimising their concern" — not to give the problem a volume or dimension greater than it deserved as it would lead to uncertainty about Indian currency. Mr. Singh said there was too much speculation on the amount involved in the scam and said the face value of the fake stamps paper seized was estimated to be Rs. 3,376 crores with as much as Rs. 3,365 crores worth fake stamps paper being recovered from the alleged kingpin, Abdul Karim Telgi's apartments. However, when questioned about the quantum of the loss of revenue because of the scam, he said the Centre could not provide a figure. "The loss of revenue is to the States," he said, adding that they had to furnish the information. As for investigation, the Minister said 74 cases had been registered across the country in Karnataka, West Bengal, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chandigarh. Of these, 15 were registered against Telgi. On follow-up action, he said that surveillance and security had been tightened at the Indian Security Press, Nashik. One official at the press was dismissed and three were suspended and safeguards had been put in place. Though a spirit of bonhomie pervaded the thinly-attended discussion, Mr. Singh underscored the fact that the scam came to light around the time he took charge of the Ministry and the first sale of the printing machinery from the security press took place before the National Democratic Alliance Government assumed office in 1998. But, he conceded that two sales took place under NDA rule, and that it was the Karnataka Government which gave the wake-up call in July last year when the Chief Minister, S. M. Krishna, informed him about a possible link between some ISP officials and the conspirators. While the CPI(M), the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Shiv Sena had a token representation in the discussion, the centre stage was occupied for the most part by the Congress and the BJP who gingerly sidestepped controversial issues to avoid the rhetoric associated with what is now known as the "Telgi scam".
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