NEW DELHI: : The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday filed a charge sheet in the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Court in Pune against 67 persons, including Abdul Karim Ladsab Telgi, his wife, his associates, a former Maharashtra MLA, a former Andhra Pradesh Minister and nine police officers.

The nearly 300-page charge sheet was filed on completion of investigation in the Bund Garden Police Station case in which printing machinery as well as fake government stamps and non-judicial stamp papers worth about Rs. 2,900crores were seized. Besides Telgi, the charge sheet names his wife Shahida, his associate Siraj Nasipudi, his nephew Tabrej Telgi, Sabbir Sheikh, Sajju, printer Udai Sawant, former Maharashtra MLA Anil Gote, former Andhra Pradesh Minister C.B.K. Yadav, former Mumbai Police Commissioner R.S.Sharma, former Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch, Mumbai, S.S. Bhagal, and former Deputy Commissioner (Detection) of Mumbai Police, Pradip Sawant.

Supreme Court order

The CBI took up the case on the orders of the Supreme Court for investigation to find the nexus among politicians, senior police officers and other government servants who might have helped Telgi to carry out his unlawful activity of sale of fake stamps and stamp papers. It scrutinised over 1,200 documents seized earlier by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Maharashtra, and on its own seized more than 8,215 documents, besides examining 250 witnesses. Over 870 documents were translated from Marathi to English. The charge sheet cited 255 witnesses, whereas the SIT earlier cited 129 witnesses.

In addition to the accused charge sheeted by the SIT, over 22 accused and suspects were probed to get at the root of Telgi's organised crime syndicate.

The CBI found involvement of nine police officers in the scam. It recommended action against eight other police officers, including two high-ranking retired officers for misconduct.

A printing machine and a positive plate-making machine were seized which were earlier unsuccessfully used by Telgi for printing Re. 1 Revenue stamps.

Bank transactions

A second report from a chartered accountant firm was also obtained to link bank transactions with details in the printouts from a laptop seized during the investigation.

The investigating agency detected four more properties in Maharashtra acquired through funds generated from the sale of fake stamps and stamp papers.

The Income Tax Department was also requested to evaluate the 14 properties detected by the SIT and the CBI for establishing the investments made by the Telgi network which were proved to have been procured through the sale proceeds of stamps and stamp papers. The IT department report is awaited.

To facilitate simultaneous trial, the Karnataka and Maharashtra governments were approached for installing video conferencing facility in the court/jail premises at Pune and Bangalore and a similar process has also been initiated with the Delhi Government.

The sale of gum-washed counterfeit government stamps and stamp papers was going on from 1984 allegedly by Telgi and his associates. In 1998, they installed a full-fledged printing house where counterfeit stamps and stamp papers printing was done on a large scale.

The sale of counterfeits was carried out through a network of offices opened by Telgi in different parts of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, Thane and Pune.

As many as 43 stations were taken on rent in these three cities by the syndicate for sale and printing of these material and 67 bank accounts opened for realising the sale proceeds.

They sold counterfeits to government offices, insurance companies, share brokers, real estate agents, banks and others. They even used the services of government-licensed vendors in Mumbai and Pune. Through deception, they obtained huge quantities of papers from the manufacturing units which supplied the papers to the India Security Press, Nashik.

The syndicate also floated transport firms for transportation of counterfeits from Mumbai to other places, the CBI charge sheet said.

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