BANGALORE: An accused in the multi-crore rupee stamp paper racket involving Abdul Kareem Lala alias Abdul Telgi and others has indicated to the Special Court that he would like to plead guilty in the Madivala case.

The Madivala case pertains to telephone calls allegedly made and received by Telgi and others when Telgi was in the Parappana Agrahara jail on the outskirts of Bangalore.

Calls monitored

The Stamp Investigation Team (STAMPIT) headed by the then Additional Director-General of Police, R. Srikumar, had monitored the telephone calls and registered a case in the Madivala police station (under whose jurisdiction Parappana Agrahara falls) against Telgi and others.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is now handling the case after the Supreme Court decided to entrust the case to the agency as the racket had nationwide ramifications with operations spreading across several States.

The Madivala case is important to the prosecution as it was during the monitoring of the telephone calls by STAMPIT that several key facts came to light. It helped STAMPIT expose the alleged nexus between Telgi and his henchmen and some prison and police officials and their "cooperation" with other members of the gang in other States.

One of the 16 accused in the Madivala case had stated before the then judge of the Special Court that he wanted to plead guilty. CBI sources told The Hindu that some other accused too want to plead guilty. It is up to the Special Court located near the open-air jail to deal with the matter, the sources said.

On its part, the CBI feels that it will not gain anything if the accused plead guilty. The kingpin of the racket, Telgi, has already confessed before a magistrate in Maharashtra and he has already been convicted in one case.

The accused who want to plead guilty may have realised that they have already spent some time behind bars and are hoping that they could be let off if they plead guilty and the court accepts their plea.

The new judge, Virupax Angadi, who has taken over as the Special Judge after A.T. Munnoli was transferred, will now have to deal with his predecessor's order directing the CBI to include the names of 20 accused it had dropped from the Madivala case while filing the charge sheet.

Charge sheet

While preferring a charge sheet against 16 accused, the CBI decided to drop the charges against Byroji Rao, C.S. Balaji, Parvez Telgi, Khalid Ahmed, Jitender, Madar, Mohammad Ghouse, Jaheer, Mohammad Ahmed, Deepak, Mansoor, Sajju, Sirajudin, Gopinath, Sanjay, Sohail, Tabrez Telgi, Uday Sawant, Madhukar and Tukaram.

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