Court permits opening of 6 VCDs in Telgi

Pune, Sep 19 (UNI) The Special MCOCA Court today permitted the opening of six VCD's contaning results of the brain mapping tests of prime accused in the fake stamp paper scam, Abdul Karim Telgi and five others, 164 confessional statements of accused and confessional statements of 19 accused who pleaded guilty in the MCOCA Court.

Confusion reigned supreme when proceedings and circulation of the copies of the VCD's and confessional statements to all the accused were obstructed by three accused, suspended ACP M C Mulani, former Samajwadi Party Janata Party MLA Anil Gote, and Telgi's lawyer Rashi Kulkarni who took turns in citing points to prevent the Special Designated Judge Chitra Bhedi from giving orders to open and give copies of all the VCD's and confessional statements to all the accused.

After hearing them, the Special Judge, however, did not allow the CBI to give copies of the transcripts to the accused. At one stage, Rashid Kulkarni launched a vitriolic personal attack on special public prosecutor Raja Thackeray. Although the judge warned Kulkarni several times, he continued his tirade against the public prosecutor.

In their objections, the three accused, Gote, Kulkarni and Mulani pointed out that before opening the CD's there has to be mandatory compliance of rules. The prosecution has consistently misguided the court at different times, they said, adding that the prosecution wants to open the VCD's ''to legalise the illegalities''. They also said that the contents of the VCD's should not be treated as evidence.

Public prosecutor Raja Thackeray, however, maintained that the VCD's contained evidence of conspiracy.

The VCD's contain the brain mapping tests of prime accused Telgi, R R Reddy, Manoj Mehta, Dilip Kamath, D Y Dal and Azim Telgi, which conducted in December 2004 at Bangalore.

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