VISAKHAPATNAM: The City Police on Tuesday arrested a former district registrar and a former sub-registrar on charges of hatching a conspiracy to grab government lands worth Rs 250 crore.
Acting on the recommendations of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) looking into the land scam, ACP (north sub-division) BVS Nageswara Rao arrested retired district registrar Padaala Venkateswara Rao and sub-registrar PVNS Satyanarayana Rao.
SIT investigations found both the former officers guilty of conspiring with Chekuri Sudhakar Raju and issuing stamp duty receipts worth Rs 1.70 lakh for 24.42 acres of government land in survey number 124/A, behind Visakha Valley School in China Gadili mandal in 2010.
According to police, a case was registered at PM Palem Police Station against Chekuri Sudhakar Raju on charges of cheating Manthina Dasaradha Maharaju and a few others from West Godavari district in 2010. Raju demanded Rs 5 crore for selling 8 acres of the 24.42-acre government land. However, the deal was settled at Rs 4.5 crore.
“Sudhakar Raju approached then district registrar Venkateswara Rao and sub-registrar PVNS Satyanarayana Rao. Both took a bribe of `1 crore and issued fake stamp duty receipts claiming that the 24.42 acres belonged to the erstwhile Maharaja of Vizianagaram PVG Raju who had sold the stretch to the father of Sudhakar Raju in 1990. They also colluded to fabricate an unregistered sale deed for the stretch in 2010, though the stretch is a government land,” the ACP told TNIE.