SCANDAL

Big fish in the net

ANUPAMA KATAKAM

Eight police officers, including an Inspector-General of Police, have been arrested and the net has been spread out for more in the fake stamp paper scam in Maharashtra, even as investigations unravel its extent in several States.

Mumbai Police Commissioner R.S. Sharma, who was interrogated as part of the stamp paper scam investigations on November 8.

TIME is running out for some top politicians, bureaucrats and policemen in Maharashtra. When the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe the Rs.3,000-crore fake stamp paper scam begins presenting evidence, many heads are expected to roll. There is apparently enough to prove that some of the most powerful people in the State have backed the mastermind of the scam: Abdul Karim Telgi. The evidence includes 1,300 hours of taped phone conversations between Telgi and his various contacts, which the Karnataka government handed over to the SIT.

Already in the dock is Inspector-General of Police Sridhar Vagal, who was arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) on the charge of accepting a bribe from Telgi. Seven other policemen and one politician have been imprisoned for their active involvement in the racket. In fact, the number of policemen involved in the unfolding scam and the staggering sums of money they have allegedly received seem to be without parallel. They include Assistant Inspector of Police Dilip Pandurang Kamath, Assistant Inspector of Police Vashist Andhale, Crime Branch Inspector Dattatreya Dhaal, Assistant Commissioner of Police Gokul Bhagaji Patil and Sub-Inspector Prabhakat Kakade.

Vagal's arrest and the possibility of Mumbai Police Commissioner R.S. Sharma being fired for his involvement has dealt a severe blow to the reputation of the State police force. This is the first time a senior police officer in Maharashtra has been arrested on a corruption charge and a Police Commissioner has been summoned twice for interrogation.

This is just the beginning, says an informed source in the SIT. The racket, which involves the printing and selling of counterfeit stamp paper, exposes the complicity of the police force not only in Maharashtra but right across the country. The scam has been detected in seven States, including Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, said to be the hubs of Telgi's operations. The loss in revenue to the government due to the circulation of dud stamp paper runs into several thousand crores (Frontline, November 21).

On November 12, the SIT presented a sealed copy of the interim report to the Bombay High Court with proof of R.S. Sharma's role in the scam. The court decided that the report should be given to Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and it was for him to decide whether Sharma should continue in the post. The report is said to list nine instances of acts of omission and commission committed by Sharma. "Let's just say there is enough to prove his culpability. "He has to go," said the SIT source. Sharma retires on November 30 and it is speculated that the Chief Minister will probably allow him to finish without too much of a scandal. In fact, Sharma went on leave a day after the report was submitted to Shinde.

Sharma has been connected time and again with the Telgi racket but has not been charged for want of evidence. That several of his political bosses may also be in trouble is another matter. In fact, his appointment as police chief in December 2002 became controversial because of his alleged links with the scam. Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, however, gave Sharma a clean chit and supported his appointment.

That Sharma may have known of the flourishing racket is illustrated by the fact that his office was given a tip-off about a counterfeit stamp paper agent operating in Mumbai. He did not clamp down on the culprits. Sharma apparently knew that Telgi was in Mumbai and was living in five-star comfort but failed to do anything.

In 1995, when Sharma was Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) in Mumbai, Telgi was arrested in connection with four cases. In spite of not getting anticipatory bail, he managed to go scot-free. That was also the year when his fortunes changed, thanks to a few tips he had picked up on recycling stamp paper from a fellow inmate when he was in jail in 1994 for a minor cheating case.

Once out of jail, he befriended Anil Gote, a rising politician from Dhule in north Maharashtra, and secured a stamp vending licence. A year later he lost it when he was arrested on a complaint filed by the Superintendent of Stamps for transacting business in fake stamps worth Rs.16 lakhs. Undeterred, Telgi appointed several agents who applied for licences and acted as fronts for him. Incidentally, the Minister who granted the stamp licenses, Ashok Chavan, is today a Cabinet Minister in the State.

Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde (right) and Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal at a press conference in Mumbai on November 12 after the High Court directed that the Special Investigation Team's report be handed over to the Chief Minister.

Telgi would wash cancelled stamp papers with chemicals and make them look as good as new. He cultivated officials at the Security Press in Nashik, where the stamp paper is printed. With their connivance he would use government machinery to print stamp paper, which he sold through his vendors. In time he bought four second-hand printing machines and three perforating machines from the Security Press. He recruited a person to learn to make the dyes and forge the designs on the stamps. Through an associate he set up a marketing network of 29 offices in Mumbai, comprising mainly of young men and women. These "executives" would go to big institutions like the Indian Oil Corporation or the Life Insurance Corporation of India and offer them discounts of up to 5 per cent - a substantial amount given that most stamp vendors give discounts up to 2.5 per cent.

Telgi expanded his operations to Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. He even had an office on Mint Street in Mumbai, in the heart of the financial district and just opposite the government mint. Although his racket was busted several times, Telgi managed to escape the police dragnet many times. The SIT investigations reveal why. In an affidavit, Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP) Sanjay Bharve asks why, in spite of 27 cases of cheating registered against Telgi, he was never taken in. Finally in 2001, the Karnataka Police caught up with him. Today he is cooling his heels in jail.

IRONICALLY, it was R.S. Sharma, who, as Pune's Commissioner of Police in June 2002, acting on a tip-off, seized a Tata Indica car carrying fake stamp papers. The subsequent busting of a stamp paper racket operating in Pune led to Telgi and an elaborate network operating in Maharashtra and other States was unearthed. Gradually, the complicity of police officers and politicians began to be exposed even while Telgi was in jail.

In November 2002, a Special Investigating Team led by Deputy Inspector-General of Police Subodh Kumar Jaiswal was set up to conduct an inquiry into the racket and on the charges filed by Deputy Inspector-General in the State Reserve Police S.M. Mushrif. Mushrif was ACP when the racket in Pune was busted and Sharma asked him to lead the investigations.

Mushrif says that as the investigations progressed he smelt a rat and realised that he was being sidelined. He alleged that Telgi's family had been falsely charge-sheeted. He claimed that the police officer investigating the scam, Prakash Deshmukh, had initially said the family was involved but did not arrest any of its members. When Mushrif took it up with Sharma, Sharma apparently told Mushrif to let go of the Telgi family issue and concentrate on the main matter. Mushrif alleges that Deshmukh and an ACP, A.C. Mulani, had included the names of Telgi's family to extort money from Telgi. They reportedly managed to squeeze Rs.3 crores out of Telgi.

In January, a month after Sharma moved to Mumbai as Commissioner of Police, it was known that Telgi was in Mumbai and was leading a luxurious lifestyle. He, it is said, entertained police officers in an apartment in the tony Cuffe Parade neighbourhood in South Mumbai. Pradeep Sawant, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection) in the Crime Branch, was one of those seen at Telgi's place. The SIT led by Jaiswal believes that Sharma could have taken action then, but chose not to deliberately. Jaiswal presented his report to the State government in April. Apparently nothing was done.

In July, social activist and anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition in the Bombay High Court. The court appointed a SIT, to be led by former Deputy Inspector-General of Police S.S. Puri, who boasts an impeccable record, to lead the investigations. IGP Sridhar Vagal became the first prominent casualty, in early November. Vagal reportedly accepted Rs.72 lakhs from Telgi. The SIT also found evidence of Assistant Inspector of Police Kamath and Inspector Dhaal having received almost Rs.96 lakhs from Telgi. Vagal had allegedly amassed wealth and property amounting to Rs.50 crores and Kamath about Rs.100 crores.

"Police corruption is as old as the hills," says Julio Ribeiro, former Commissioner of Police of Mumbai. "Twenty to thirty years ago, corruption was confined to the junior levels. The supervisory level, drawn mainly from the Indian Police Service (IPS), was almost overwhelmingly free of this malaise.... However, by the last decade of the century the number of those in the supervisory levels who have fallen by the wayside increased considerably," he wrote in a newspaper column. But it is still shocking that an IPS officer like Vagal, who has graduated from prestigious institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Management, succumbed to greed, he says.

Ribeiro and a team of former police officers met the Chief Minister on November 13, to request him to take action against corrupt officers and restore the morale and reputation of the force.

Maharashtra's political forces have been unusually silent on the entire scandal.

"Had it not been for public pressure, Hazare's PIL and the court's insistence on an investigation, this may have been swept under the carpet," said a government official. It is well known that politicians and the bureaucracy have soft-pedalled the issue earlier. When the scam was first exposed, the Opposition began baying for Bhujbal's resignation. Bhujbal denies any involvement and stands by his conviction that Sharma is clean. Besides, Telgi was around and probably conducting his operations when the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance was in power. Informed sources hint that some very senior politicians have interacted with the scamster. For the moment, only the SIT can tell.

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