Friday, April 22, 2011

Curious case of Shridhar Vagal

Many of you will remember the Telgi Stamp Scam that happened in 2000-2003. It was hyped initially to be 60000 Crores. Later the CBI declared it to be totally not more that 172crores over many years and over the whole country. One of the fallout of the scam was the appointment of a Special Investigation Team that ended up arresting a lot of serving police officers.

RS Sharma, then CP Pune and later Mumbai, who had opened the scam in Pune, was discharged by the Pune Court at the inception for lack of any evidence. Question is, why was he arrested in the first place? Was it to teach the police a lesson not to poke their noses where they are not wanted? (The Pune Police under him had recovered 2000+ Crore worth fake stamp paper. )

Incidentally all the officers were bailed out. (a bail in MCOCA case implies absence of any evidence.) In the bail order of DCP Sawant the High Court wondered aloud whether the case is standing on its head, and whether the accused are the real heroes of the case.! I am now appalled to hear that the SIT did not ever arrest Telgi or even make any fake stamp recovery. What really is going on??.....

And now the Judge who was about to give judgment in some of the Telgi cases is abruptly transferred and removed..

The case of then JtCP Vagal gets more curious. I present some of the facts of the case as they exist in the court records. You may draw your own conclusions. Vagal was a National Merit Scholar, a Science Talent Scholar and a post graduate from IIT He joined the IPS in 1976 as a direct entry, and the youngest in the batch with an excellent track record.

In 2002-2003, when the scam broke out, he was the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch), Mumbai Police. As the Joint Commissioner he brought to book Dawood Ibrahim's brother, unraveled the Ketan Parekh Stock Scam and got Abu Salem deported and successfully got the serial bomb blast cases investigated.

He ordered the immediate arrest of Telgi in July 2002 (this order is sited as evidence against Vagal) and got Telgi arrested in the murder of his driver despite alleged instructions of then CP MN Singh not to arrest him! He approved application of MCOCA to Telgi in this case which would have fetched Telgi a possible death sentence. This proposal was later given a quiet burial by SIT/CBI.??

He personally wrote to all officers in Mumbai City including the CP to make efforts to stop stamp scam for ever the as early as July 2002 .

48 old stamp cases of Mumbai including 7 Telgi cases were reviewed and improved under his orders. Telgi who had not been arrested in any case since 1995, was arrested & charge sheeted in all these cases. Even a dormant Telgi case was revived and the first conviction of Telgi by trial was obtained by this investigation by his officers.

Defaults in 27 of these cases were found at his instance. He personally wrote to 11 DCPs to take action against defaulting Officers.

Stamps worth 800 Crores seized by Mumbai Crime Branch

He was instrumental in recovery in January 2003, 830 Crores of Fake Stamp Paper and Security Paper rolls which could have been used to further the scam. Strangely Telgi was never made an accused and his name dropped from the case by the SIT though Vagal had given in writing to arrest Telgi.

Soon Vagal was transferred out of Crime Branch in March 2003. He was arrested in Nov 2003 ostensibly for ‘attempting to facilitate’ Telgi in the Pune case. He has never worked in Pune nor did he have any access to the Pune case.

It is now clear from the case papers that there was neither any evidence what so ever against him before his arrest nor was there any mandatory prior sanction. A few hearsay statements were recorded later to justify the action. I understand that such hearsay statements are not even admissible in court as evidence. The final charge sheet was filed in 2005.

He was granted bail in 2007 by the Supreme Court which in effect observed that the Court was satisfied he was not guilty. In the trial court the CBI admitted that there was absolutely no direct evidence against him. The court observed that a case is being propped up on an interpretation of innocuous circumstances.

It appears that Vagal has suffered because he dared to take pro active action against Telgi. There is absolutely no evidence against him and in fact to the contrary. His actions against Telgi can by no strech of imagination be interpreted as helping Telgi. It is patently absurd to allege that he attempted to interfere in a case at Pune, which was investigated by a police and an SIT with which he had nothing to do, but the very investigations under him were improved and made beyond reproach.

Officers of Pune whose specific serious defaults were listed by the SIT were not made the accused. Officers who did nothing for seven years were not charged . If arresting, investigating, interrogating, taking custody, recovering property, charge sheeting and convicting an accused is a crime, he stands guilty. All these assertions are based on the documents of the case.

Because of the enormous delays in Court, he does not expect any decision by the courts in his life time. I know him well but it is only now that I came to know the facts.

This is a typical case of justice delayed is justice denied. A brilliant officer is languishing, maybe this is because he rushed in where angels feared to tread.

Towards a just society....

Pure human greed is ruining our lives. We have become exploitative of our fellow human beings. Those who are involved in this game, cre...