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Journalism of Courage
A Special CBI Judge has sentenced the last five of the 16 accused in the 2001 Telgi bogus stamp scam to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000 each.
The five — Falguni Babu Patel, Kishore Kumar Purshottam Patel, Prashant Nangappa Patil, Amzad Ali and Shaikh Zakir Hussain — were found guilty of criminal conspiracy, forgery of stamps, cheating, as well as forgery and making or possessing forged documents in the alleged scam of circulating counterfeit stamps. The convicts were licensed and unlicensed vendors who knowingly utilised/sold forged stamp papers, court fee stamps, and share transfer stamps of various denominations in Ahmedabad and Surat.
The scam, which was uncovered in 2001, was originally investigated by Gandhinagar Zone of CID Crime of Gujarat Police, before it was transferred to the CBI.
The prime accused, Abdul Karim Telgi, who belonged to Belgaum in Karnataka, was accused in multiple cases, and died in October 2017.
The fraudulent activities were discovered during a raid on stamp vendors in Surat and Ahmedabad where authorities seized a large number of bogus stamps. The operation was traced to two offices operating under the names ‘Sadguru Services’ and ‘Sahay Services’.
Of the 16 accused, two passed away during the course of the trial, while nine others were convicted earlier.
Five accused, namely Shabbir Ahmed Sheikh, Shivaji, Khalid Ahmed, Vijay Solanki and Jacob Chako, were sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 25,000 each in August 2008. In March 2009, two other accused — Sadiq Ibrahim Hudli and AKL Telgi — were sentenced to 7 years in jail and a fine of Rs 35,000 each, while Sidharth alias Sidhu was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 30,000.
The court sentenced Raju Nayak to 2 years imprisonment in August 2010.
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