Author: Pioneer News Service/Bangalore
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 18, 2002
The unearthing of Rs 2,000-crore
fake stamp paper racket by the Pune police last week, is only the tip of
the iceberg allegedly master-minded by Karim Lala, who is currently in
a Bangalore jail.
Though the racket could be easily
the biggest-ever scam in Independent India, even surpassing the Harshad
Mehta security scam, top politicians and police officers, who have been
the major beneficiaries of the loot, have succeeded in hushing up the case
by torpedoing a CBI inquiry.
The scam is estimated to involve
a mind-boggling Rs 10,000 crore spanning across a dozen States. By a strange
coincidence, most of the States are ruled by the Congress.
Though the Bangalore Police unearthed
the racket two years ago, it was only last year the prime accused Lala
was arrested in Ajmer.The Bangalore Police Commissioner H T Sangliana,who
personally interrogated Lala, had recommended for a CBI investigation because
of the inter-State ramifications of the case.
Though Chief Minister S M Krishna
was initially inclined to order a CBI probe, he withheld permission to
the apex investigating agencies allegedly after he was pressurised by certain
Congress leaders, who reportedly argued that the BJP-led NDA Government
at the Centre could use the evidence to politically tarnish the image of
the Congress.
The Opposition parties had demanded
the resignation of Tourism Minister Roshan Baig after it was revealed that
the minister's brother was a partner of Lala in a kerosene business. Finally,
the State Government entrusted the investigation to a special team led
by R. Srikumar, IPS, who is with the Police Housing Corporation.Though
Mr Srikumar, who has earlier done a stint with the CBI, is known for his
investigative abilities, he could hardly do much as the tentacles of the
racket run into several States.
The friends of Lala in the Government
have ensured that he has a comfortable stay in the Bangalore Central Jail
where he was provided with five star facilities till the Press exposed
the scandal. Lala was reported to have run his racket from the jail through
his cell phone.
Lala, a hawker at a railway station
in Belgaum district in Karnataka, had become a"multi-millionaire" by distributing
fake stamp and revenue papers to vendors who sold them to the public, depriving
crores of rupees worth revenue to the State Government.
After the unearthing of the scandal,
the Karnataka Government has issued an order to gradually do away with
the stamp paper during the registration of the documents.
