THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Special Investigation Team, formed to investigate the fake stamp paper case, has taken an advocate clerk into custody from Moovattupuzha on Tuesday in connection with the case. This is the first major breakthrough in the case, which has possible inter-state links. Vijayan, 45, belonging to Thiruvananthapuram, who has been absconding since the detection of the scam, was taken into custody from his hideout in Moovattupuzha, Ernakulam.
“Vijayan has been working as a clerk for many years,” said an officer, who is a member of the investigation team.
The major scam came to light last week when a sub-judge detected some bogus stamp papers, which were used in filing certain affidavits in a case. The Special Investigation Team was formed on April 22 under the supervision of City Police Commissioner T J Jose and is led by DCP Putta Vimaladitya.
The police team which was earlier investigating the case had submitted the FIR in the CJM Court here on April 20 charging a senior vendor, K S Sreedharan Nair,81, as the first accused.
The police charged him with forgery and cheating. The FIR states that the stamp paper submitted as early as 2009 has been detected as fake.Meanwhile, Shanghumugham Assistant Commissioner K S Vimal Kumar said that the police was considering filing a fresh FIR as more forged stamp papers have been detected later from various courts.
“The initial FIR was lodged after detecting two such fake stamp paper cases. But now, that has neared almost 200. Hence we have to examine those stamp papers too and check whether the same person was behind all the cases,” he said.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, more fake judicial stamp papers were detected in the sub- courts here. Stamp papers worth `54,000 were found to have been submitted in as many as seven cases that were settled.
The police are waiting for the court authorities to hand over the rest of the detected stamp papers.