A forged recommendation letter recommending the second highest civilian award in the country for music composer Bappi Lahiri, purportedly written by Congress MP from Uttar Pradesh, Kamal Kishore, was sent to Union home minister P. Chidambaram’s North Block office here.
The forgery came to light when Mr Kishore, who represents the Bahraich constituency of Uttar Pradesh in Lok Sabha, wrote a letter to Mr Chidambaram last week, stating that the letter sent from his office recommending Bappi Lahiri for Padma Bhushan/ Padma Vibhushan award was written on a forged letter head and his signatures too were forged.
The home ministry sent the complaint to the crime branch of Delhi police on Wednesday, which, after examining the details of the matter, registered a case of forgery and other sections.
The case was registered by economic offences wing of the Delhi police. Repeated attempts to contact Mr Kishore on phone did not yield a positive result.
Police sources, however, disclosed that the matter had come to light when a party functionary told Mr Kishore about his recommendation letter to the home minister. “Mr Kishore was surprised as he had never written the letter and asked his staff to check the records. On searching documents, a duplicate copy of the forged letter was recovered from the records after which Mr Kishore wrote to the home minister,” a source said.
Mr Kishore asked the home minister to cancel the recommendation and also sought a detailed inquiry into the case after which the Delhi police was informed. Police sources said that the involvement of some staff members of Mr Kishore is suspected in the matter. “We will call up the staff for questioning and a proper inquiry will be conducted. Whosoever is found guilty will be dealt as per law,” a senior police official said.