’90s forgery case: VSNL man gets a year in jail

MUMBAI: A special court on Friday convicted and sentenced a former employee of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) to one year’s imprisonment on charges of forgery and cheating.
In 1997, Suresh Kamath, was booked for cheating the company by forging cheques to the tune of Rs 14 lakh between 1992 and 1995. The investigating agency said that the accused was arrested only last year from the airport as he was absconding.In 2010, three other accused in the case were acquitted by the court. The prosecution alleged that Kamath was working as a traffic accountant at VSNL. It further alleged that he got into a criminal conspiracy with the other accused, all private citizens, who ran a business, and repeatedly encashed the forged cheques. The prosecution alleged that Kamath encashed four such cheques of VSNL issued to an advertising company with whom the company had genuine transactions. The cheques issued in 1992, 1993, 1995 and 1996 were deposited into the the bank accounts of the co-accused. The prosecution said that Kamath abused his position by defrauding VSNL.