Telgi sentenced to 5-years' RI in 9 cases

Agencies

Mumbai: Abdul Karim Telgi, the mastermind of multi-crore rupee fake stamp paper racket, was today convicted and sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment in nine cases by a special court after he pleaded guilty in all of them.

Telgi was sentenced to concurrent sentences and ordered to pay a fine of over Rs 85,000 by special CBI judge C K Bhedi.

Telgi, now lodged in Yerawada jail in Pune, pleaded for leniency in the sentence on the grounds that he was HIV positive. Telgi is now serving prison sentences in other cases relating to production and distribution of fake stamp papers.

Eleven other persons were accused in the different cases and most of them pleaded guilty. The other accused were also awarded prison terms of five years by the court.

Judge Bhedi while awarding the sentence to Telgi and other accused in the cases noted that many of them had been sentenced by a special MCOCA court in 2007. The court also considered the plea of many of the accused, including Telgi, that they were facing financial hardships as they had spent multiple years in jail.

Of the nine cases against Telgi, eight relate to fake stamp paper while one to a fake visa racket in 1992. Six of the cases had been investigated by the police and three by the CBI. The fake stamp papers seized in the eight cases were worth over Rs 15 lakh, police said.