India Post on Wednesday filed a case with the Seshadripuram police in Bengaluru against D.K. Tulasappa of Bhadravati, Independent candidate contesting the elections to the Karnataka Legislative Council from the South-West Teachers’ constituency, accusing him of using counterfeit stamps with denomination of ₹10 and ₹5 to send postal articles to voters.
The polling will be held in the constituency on Friday.
While 472 envelopes with counterfeit stamps were found at the Indian Institute of Science post office in Bengaluru, nearly 200 such envelopes were found in Mangaluru’s Pandeshwar and Kankanady post offices. Similar envelopes were found in post offices in Udupi and Shivamogga too, according to the complaint.
Complainant B.R. Manjunath, an India Post staff, said use of counterfeit stamps was discovered by a Multitask Staff member who collected postal articles dropped in the postbox at the IISc. post office on May 30. She found counterfeit stamps on 472 envelopes posted in the name of Mr. Tulasappa.
While a few had counterfeit stamps of ₹10 denomination bearing an image of Sir C.V. Raman, some had counterfeit stamp of ₹10 bearing an image of of Chhatrapati Shivaji and a few had ₹5 stamp with an image of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.
The complaint has been registered for offences under Sections 255, 260 and 263 (A) of the IPC.
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Senior Superintendent of Posts, Bengaluru West, H.R. Veeranagoud, told The Hindu that similar articles were also found in post boxes at Seshadripuram, J.C. Nagar and R.T. Nagar post offices. Fewer perforations and absence of self adhesive on the stamps helped in identifying that they were counterfeit. Perpetrators have taken coloured photocopies of the original stamp, he said.
Soon after the discovery of counterfeit stamps, Mr. Veeranagoud said, alerts were sent to post offices across the State to seize the articles.
While such envelopes were seized at many places, some of them had been delivered to the address mentioned, he said.
He said a case was filed following an inquiry by the department for which Mr. Tulasappa failed to appear despite issuance of notice.