The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : CB-CID grills police officers in Serina case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

CB-CID grills police officers in Serina case

S. Vijay Kumar

A few more officials are likely to be questioned

MADURAI: The counterfeit currency case involving Serina and three others is taking new dimensions with the Crime Branch Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) probing various angles, including the role played by some senior police officials.

Highly placed police sources told The Hindu that the CB-CID grilled two Superintendents of Police on Monday. A few more officials were likely to be questioned. The agency also took possession of the case diary particulars of these officials, who served in Madurai and Chennai during 2003.

"Besides probing the source of the fake currency (Rs. 30 lakh), we are trying to establish the circumstances under which the Karuppayoorani police registered a case against Serina, her mother Remija and car driver Sathish, accusing them of possessing 30 kg of ganja and Rs. 1.4 crore in cash," a CB-CID official said.

Though a special court acquitted the three and ordered that the money be returned, the Income Tax Department lodged a complaint, pointing to certain "discrepancies." Based on Reserve Bank of India (RBI) findings that the serial numbers pertaining to Rs. 1,000 denomination totalling Rs. 30 lakh were not let into circulation when the police seized them in Madurai, a counterfeit currency case was registered against Serina and others.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspected counterfeit currency notes had all the security features imprinted by the Currency Note Press, and they also passed the ultra violet ray test.

"No discrepancies were detected when the RBI officials verified the high-denomination notes on three occasions. There is a remote possibility that an external agency could print currency notes with such a precision," the official said.

While the genuineness of the suspected fake money was yet to be ascertained, police sources said there were doubts that the entire money was part of a hawala transaction involving an inter-State racket.

There was information that a group of people, including some officials, politicians and industrialists, was indulging in hawala transactions with their counterparts based in a couple of Southeast Asian countries. But how the money came to Serina in Madurai and was there more than Rs. 1.4 crore in the transaction was being probed, the sources said.

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