Former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal's nephew, Sameer Bhujbal, on Monday appeared before the Special Investigating Team probing the multicrore stamp paper scam.

Sameer was summoned by the SIT twice in connection with the fake stamp paper racket. But on both occasions, Sameer, who was away in the US, failed to keep his date with the investigators.

Sameer was in New York to attend a workshop as a representative of the Mumbai Education Trust of which Chhagan Bhujbal is a trustee.

The SIT likely questioned him about allegations that huge sums of money changed hands during transfers of senior police officials by the home ministry.

One such controversial transfer was that of Inspector Jahid, who was attached to the cyber cell of the Mumbai Crime Branch and was probing a case involving Telgi. He was shunted to Nagpur allegedly to derail the investigation.

Director General of Police (CID) T K Choudhary has already been questioned in this connection as he was additional DGP (establishment) when Jahid was transferred.

S K Bankar, former private secretary to Chhagan Bhujbal, also had been questioned by SIT.

Sameer allegedly had close links with Antim Totla, who reportedly came to the rescue of the NCP when there was a move to topple the Vilasrao Deshmukh-led Democratic Front government in 2002.

Totla reportedly hosted DF legislators in Bangalore at Telgi's bidding to prevent them from defecting to the opposition ranks.