A village called Telgi

It is a truism that India lives in her villages, but urbanites often ignore the 70 per cent out there. After all, what do those 8216;8216;...

It is a truism that India lives in her villages, but urbanites often ignore the 70 per cent out there. After all, what do those 8216;8216;yokels8217;8217; have to teach us sophisticated city-dwellers? And then, every so often one of those 8216;8216;rubes8217;8217; rises up to teach us a trick or two.

I am willing to wager that most Indians could not point out where the tiny village of Telgi lies on a map. Come to that, how many would be any more enlightened on being told that Telgi is in the Bijapur district of Karnataka? It is in the northern part of the state! However, Telgi has now obtained the dubious distinction of becoming one of the most notorious places in the country thanks to one of its sons 8212; Karim Lala.

Tiny Telgi is now hitting the headlines not just in Karnataka, but also in Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Pondicherry. Karim Lala, the alleged brains behind the stamp paper scam, has supposedly done business worth Rs 30,000 crore. He has supposedly corrupted police officers high and low. He has been the cause of several arrests. Yet, in spite of all the headlines, two important facts have not received the publicity which they deserve.

First, how did Karim Lala win a licence to deal in stamp paper? I understand that he got the green signal nine years ago because a man serving in the Maharashtra ministry of that day recommended his case. What is more, it is said this minister specifically requested that he be granted the licence immediately. The minister is said to have been Vilasrao Deshmukh who would go on to serve as chief minister of Maharashtra until he was recently dumped in favour of Sushil Kumar Shinde. Shouldn8217;t there be a probe to clear his name?

Stamp paper is not the only commodity in which Karim Lala traded. He also dealt in petrol and kerosene. His partner in Karnataka was the brother of a minister. He also had a factory in Pondicherry. Using this as a front he imported naphtha which was subsequently sold as petrol. This factory has recently been sealed.

While Karim Lala hit the news in a big way just weeks ago, he was arrested in Bangalore as far back as 2001. The commissioner of police at the time officially recommended that the case was far too much for the local investigators to handle, and that it should be immediately handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. For reasons that are still unclear, this suggestion was rejected by those above him.

This has led to an immense anomaly. The Telgi case is so big that the Central Bureau of Investigation has been called in to investigate Karim Lala8217;s links in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. However, in Maharashtra and Karnataka, the chief areas of activity for this master criminal, the probe is still in the hands of the local police forces!

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While much has been made of the policemen corrupted by Karim Lala, there has been relatively little talk of his political connections. Why did the Government of Karnataka turn down the recommendation to hand the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation? Why does Maharashtra still hesitate to let the federal agency investigate the matter?

The second point I would like to raise is the manner in which Karim Lala gained the tools of his trade. Printing stamp paper convincingly enough to fool lakhs is no easy matter. So how did Karim Lala get hold of the machinery? The answer must lie in Nasik, Maharashtra, where the security press is located.

Karim Lala obtained the machines quite legally. Permission had been obtained from the Government of India 8212; but only under the specific condition that the machine could be sold only in a knocked-down state. This stipulation was specifically violated. Friendly staff colluded with Karim Lala to ensure that he got the machinery in perfect condition.

Even the manager who made this possible had his patrons. When the police finally opened a bank locker belonging to Telgi, they found a copy of a letter written by a legal luminary to the then finance minister. This epistle was a recommendation in favour of the Nasik Security Press, the man who would go on to aid Karim Lala. How did a copy of this letter end up in Karim Lala8217;s locker?

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We in India have suffered a surfeit of scams. But some insist that the stamp paper scam could be the biggest of them all, bigger even than Bofors and the two stock market scams put together. Which, if true, leaves me even more mystified than ever why the current ministry in Maharashtra continues to hold the fort against a unified probe.

Karnataka is the janmabhoomi of Karim Lala as well as the state where he first set foot in his business. Maharashtra was his karmabhoomi, the state where obtained both the printing press as well as the licence to trade in stamp paper. If both states continue to withhold complete cooperation with the Central Bureau of Investigation, it tells me that Karim Lala continues to have friends in high places. Innocent men would have long since unrolled the red carpet for the Central Bureau of Investigation. This suggests that Karim Lala8217;s friends were also partners in crime, does it not?

In the wake of the Judeo tape we shall hear a lot about corruption in high places. But ask yourself this: why is nobody keen to ask for a CBI or judicial probe, or even a joint parliamentary committee, to investigate the biggest scam of all?