Sunday, April 16 2006 11:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: After nearly two years of probe into what was once touted as the 'mother-of-all-scams', money involved in the entire fake stamp paper case masterminded by Abdul Karim Telgi amounted to only Rs 172 crore and not to Rs 30,000 crore as speculated when the case first came to light. Investigations carried out by a team of the CBI, Income Tax, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Enforcement Directorate and the Reserve Bank of India have reveal ed that the financial magnitude of the entire scam was only Rs 172 crore.

This was conveyed to the Union Home Ministry in a report submitted by the various agencies here this week giving an update on the status of the 48 cases which were registered in 2004 based on directions from the Supreme Court.

It was earlier speculated that the scam amounted to nearly Rs 30,000 crore.

The period calculated by the team was from 1993 and 2002 during which it found that the financial magnitutde of the entire case rose sharply only after 1998 when Telgi began his own manufacturing unit, sources in the Home ministry said.

During the investigations the team found that the alleged scamster had 36 properties across the country and 123 bank accounts in 18 cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Indore, the sources said.

Out of the 48 cases, 46 had either been sent for trial or were in the process of being chargesheeted, a rare feat for the CBI to finalise such a large number of cases within a period less than two years.