Tuesday, June 28 2005 16:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: CBI has sought sanction for prosecution of three persons, including a senior IPS officer of Tamil Nadu, in order to facilitate filing of a chargesheet against them for their alleged help to stamp scam kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi in spreading his network in the State.

The agency sought prosecution of Deputy Inspector General of Police A P Mohammad Ali, Assistant Commissioner of Police S Sankar and LIC official S Ramaswamy from the State Government, CBI sources said in New Delhi today (Jun 28, 2005).

All the three were arrested by the CBI. Raids had been conducted at their official and residential premises last year.

The sources said CBI had recommended Regular Departmental Action with major penalty against State's Director General (Training) S Ramani, Additional Director General (crime) Amit Verma and an Assistant Commissioner of Police Radhakrishnan.

These three officials have been grilled several times by the CBI's Special Investigating Team.

During CBI's investigations into the cases here, it had been established that fake stamps were being sold by licensed vendors through Telgi's firm, Marina Services, operating from Anna Nagar in the city.

The cases were registered by Crime Branch of Chennai Police in 2002 but the investigations did not progress well despite the fact that STAMPIT of Karnataka had recovered fake stamps to the tune of Rs 170 crore in the State.

Tamil Nadu is the second State where police probe has come under cloud after Maharashtra where Mumbai Police Commissioner R S Sharma had lost his job following probe into the Telgi case.

CBI claimed that during investigations, it found that the two officials, despite arresting some gang members of Abdul Karim Telgi, were not able to curb the racket.

The CBI said as a result of "improper" probe by the local police, the stamp vendor managed to come out on bail and continue the illegal operations as a part of the organised network.

Telgi had set up companies under the names Marina Services, Sahara Services, Paramount Services and Bharat Enterprises in Chennai to carry out his operations here.

Another official, Venkateswar Rao, working with National Insurance Company, was also likely to be charge sheeted for allegedly issuing letters to all divisional offices of the insurance firm recommending M/S SAM's Services for procurement of insurance and revenue stamps.

The firm was operated by Telgi's associates and stamps supplied by it were fake.