NEW DELHI, Aug 26:
A Delhi court has awarded varying jail terms to six persons for manufacturing, possessing and selling fake stamps and currency notes here in 2007, saying they have been “jeopardising” the economy.
“They had settled a parallel machinery for manufacture and sale of counterfeit postal stamps and counterfeit currency notes thereby jeopardising the whole economy of the country.
“Our country as a whole is finding it very difficult to curb the menace of counterfeit currency notes and counterfeit postal stamps which have come into the market and are being exchanged by unwary members of the public, almost daily,” Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Virender Bhat said.
Out of six convicts, Virender Rai and his accomplice Hari Narain were sentenced to ten years in jail and imposed fines of Rs 2.25 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh respectively for conspiring to manufacture and sell fake stamps and currency notes.
While software professional Yagya Dutt Sharma, Satpal and sacked postal department employee Rohtash Kumar were sentenced to seven years jail term for helping the main accused, they were also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each.
The court, however, let off sixth accused Raj Kumar after awarding him a jail term equal to the imprisonment already undergone by him during the trial, saying he was a first-time offender and can “mend” his ways by joining the mainstream of society. Raj Kumar was also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000.
The prosecution case dated back to March 10, 2007, when the six were arrested by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police from Palam village.
Public Prosecutor Aditiya Chauhan told the court that fake stamps worth Rs 2.8 lakhs, counterfeit currency notes and forged letterheads of the MCD and the Food and Civil Supplies Department were also recovered from their possession.
The court, in its judgement, said, “I find overwhelming evidence regarding the complicity of the accused in hatching the conspiracy for manufacture, use and sale of counterfeit currency as well as counterfeit postal stamps.”
It refused to show leniency to remaining five convicts saying, “It is apparent that all the (five) convicts except Raj Kumar are habitual offenders and there is no scope of their mending their ways and coming into the main stream.
The accused had disclosed that one of them had posed as a high-ranking MCD official and had got printed letterheads of various government departments to cheat people on pretext of giving them job. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel