The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Another arrest in fake stamp paper case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 09, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Another arrest in fake stamp paper case

By K.T. Sangameswaran

CHENNAI, JAN. 8. Even as the charge sheet in a fake stamp scam case, in which a Tamil Nadu Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) has been named accused is being finalised, one more person has been arrested. The Central Bureau of Investigation has also received from the State Government documents which could not be got initially, sources in the agency told The Hindu .

Final report soon

The final report will be placed before court soon after the sanction for prosecuting Mr. Ali and another police official is received.

Based on Supreme Court orders, the CBI took over the case registered in 2002 and handled by the State Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID), and arrested A.P. Mohamed Ali, suspended DIG, CB-CID; S. Sankar, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Chennai, and R. Sadhu, a Life Insurance Corporation officer, on July 1. They were later released on conditional bail. The allegation against the police officers is that despite arresting some persons, they failed to take effective action to curb fake stamp paper. The LIC officer was alleged to be the main conduit in the bulk purchase of bogus papers.

A couples of days ago, the CBI arrested Kennedy (35) of Karnataka, who was earlier residing in Chennai, in connection with the multicrore scam. He was alleged to have played a role in the distribution of the fake stamp papers. The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, D. Arulraj, remanded him to custody. More than 200 witnesses were examined. On September 30 last, the public prosecutor of the CBI told the Additional CMM court that though investigation was completed, the charge sheet could not be filed as the agency could not get "vital documents" from the Tamil Nadu Government. As the charge sheet was not filed before the 90-day deadline after the arrests, the accused were enlarged on conditional bail. The conditions were relaxed later. Now, with the receipt of the documents, the process of deciding the witnesses and finalising the charge sheet was on. The DIG being an IPS officer, the Union Government's sanction was required to prosecute him. The Government's sanction was necessary for prosecuting the Assistant Commissioner.

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