After the phenomenal success of Scam 1992, which was based on the Harshad Mehta Scam, showrunner Hansal Mehta is back with another thrilling show in the Scam series, which is a biographical financial thriller series that dives in-depth into India's biggest scams. In the new series Scam 2003, Abdul Karim Telgi's Stamp Paper scam will be depicted.
Abdul Karim Telgi was born in Belgaum, Karnataka, on July 29, 1961. His father was an employee at the Indian Railways and passed away when Telgi was young. Telgi supported his own education by selling fruits and vegetables on trains and eventually moved to Saudi Arabia. He began his career as a counterfeiter upon returning to India after seven years.
Abdul Karim Telgi created fake passports and documents to export labour from India to Saudi Arabia through his company, Arabian Metro Travels. His company produced fake documents that allowed labourers to bypass immigration checks. He eventually moved on to counterfeiting stamp papers.
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Stamp papers are documents that are pre-printed carrying stamp revenue that is legally validated through the Indian Stamp Act 1899. It is a special type of paper that is used for various legal and financial documents to make them legally valid and binding. These stamp papers are typically sold by the government or authorised vendors.
There are two types of stamps – Judicial and Non-Judicial stamps. When one is required to pay court fees in civil cases, this is done in the form of judicial stamps, as cash and cheques are not acceptable forms of payment. On the other hand, non-judicial stamps are used when drafting any agreement, such as a rent agreement, gift deed, etc. Stamp papers are sold by the government and carry various denominations, including Rs 10, Rs 100, and Rs 500, with the corresponding fee paid to the state governments.
Beginning in 1992, Abdul Karim Telgi's stamp paper scam had two aspects. One was to produce counterfeit stamp documents and the second was to generate a shortage of stamp paper that would create the right opportunity for Telgi to supply the counterfeit. As per reports, he recruited 300 agents to sell these fakes that included stamp papers, judicial court fee stamps, revenue stamps, special adhesive stamps, foreign bills, broker's notes, insurance policies, share transfer certificates to bulk purchasers like banks, insurance companies, and stock brokerage firms.
The scale of this operation was estimated to be around Rs 30,000 crore, so extensive that it implicated several police officers and government employees. According to investigations, Telgi's team bribed officials of the Indian Security Press in Maharashtra to help create an artificial scarcity of documents and obtain machinery and printing material to create the fake papers.
On August 19, 2000, two men transporting counterfeit stamp papers were arrested in Bengaluru. During the interrogation, the men exposed the scam, which led to raids across Bengaluru that uncovered counterfeit stamp paper and other legal documents that reportedly amounted to more than Rs 9 crore. At this time, Abdul Karim Telgi was just one of the suspects who had absconded.
Between 1992 and 2002, at least 12 cases relating to these stamps were registered against Telgi in Maharashtra alone and an additional 15 cases from other states. Cases were registered against him, however, no serious action was taken against him. Telgi was finally arrested in November 2001 after the police received a tip that he was travelling to Ajmer, Rajasthan, on a pilgrimage. Telgi's arrest revealed the true scale of the scam.
In custody, Telgi initially told the police that he was a small part of a scam that involved many high-ranking officials, including police and politicians. Upon hearing this, the Special Investigation Team's (SIT) formed "STAMPIT" as a dedicated team to investigate the scam. Once a charge sheet against Telgi was filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2004, he was moved to prison. Telgi reportedly continued his operations from prison, and in 2017, the High Court convicted two prison officials for supplying mobile phones to Telgi.
Telgi was sentenced to 30 years of rigorous imprisonment in 2006. In 2007, he received an additional 13-year sentence. He was also asked to pay a fine of Rs 202 crore. Telgi died in 2017 due to meningitis, compounded by long-standing health issues like diabetes and hypertension. A year after his death, on December 31, 2018, the Nashik session court in Maharashtra cleared Telgi and seven others in the Stamp Paper Scam case, stating that there was a lack of evidence against the accused.
Directed by Tushar Hiranandani, Scam 2003: The Telgi Story began streaming on Sony LIV on September 1. Announcing the show's impending release, the official account of Sony LIV posted on X, “The story of India's Biggest stamp paper scam and the man behind it - Abdul Karim Telgi! Scam 2003 - The Telgi Story, streaming on 1st September.” One can stream Scam 2003: The Telgi Story online on Sony LIV as long as they have a subscription.