THE arrest of the Telugu Desam Party’s MLA and a former minister in the Chandrababu Naidu ministry, C Krishna Yadav, under Maharashtra Organised Crime Control Act by the special investigation team of Maharashtra police in Hyderabad on the 6th of this month in connection with the multi-crore fake stamp papers scam, which actually came to light in 1999, and the widely published rumours that two ministers, another seven MLAs and some police officers were involved in the scam are causing tremors in the ruling party and the government. Yadav was remanded to police custody till 20th of this month by the special judge of Maharashtra Organised Crime Control Act Court for his complicity in the scam.
The Maharashtra police had in their possession a taped conversation between Krishna Yadav and Kareem Telgi, the kingpin behind this mega scam of about an estimated Rs 3000 crore extending to several states and a follower of the mafia don, Dawood Ibrahim, which provides clinching evidence to the effect that Yadav demanded Rs 2 crores and received Rs 50 lakhs from Telgi. In the face of this damaging predicament, the TDP leadership was forced to suspend Yadav from the party. However, the developments relating to this racket have already caused considerable damage to the ruling establishment and cast aspersions on its credibility on several counts.
A case was registered in Begum Bazar police station on August 5, 1999, following a complaint by Vysya Bank manager suspecting that the stamps supplied by Venkateswara Enterprises were fake and after one week forty accused, including Abdul Kareem Telgi, were arrested. Telgi, who claimed that he received stamps from one Ashish Chakravarti of Kolkata, was taken on police remand to Mumbai and Kolkata for investigating and was released on bail on September 20 that year. Chakravarti surrendered in court and denied his involvement in the case on April 28, 2000. The case was handed over to the CBCID in Andhra Pradesh on December 17, 1999. Another case was registered in IV Town police station in Visakhapatnam on April 3, 2000 and stamp papers worth Rs 5.56 crore were seized. Seized stamps were sent to India Security Press on December 6, 2000 for expert opinion which was received on April 30, 2002 only. No charge sheets have been filed in these cases so far.
Scrutiny of the final investigation report submitted by the investigating officer of the CBCID on August 31, 2002, revealed many gaps in the evidence collected and analysis against the accused and after returning the same on the November 22, that year, the revised report was resubmitted on July 17, this year, according to the information provided at a media conference the chief minister, N Chandrababu Naidu, held on 9th of this month in Hyderabad.http://pd.cpim.org/2003/0921/09212003_ap_scandal.htm
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