Three retired revenue officials were arrested by the Crime Branch for their alleged involvement in stamp paper irregularity in 2005. The officials include a former sub-registrar. They were produced in the SDJM court and remanded in judicial custody on Saturday.
Sources said a group of people had allegedly sold a patch of land measuring 4.41 acres belonging to Christian community to a few influential persons in the town at below par price. Despite protests from the community members, they had managed to register the sale deeds with the help of sub-registrar office employees.
Crime Branch DSP Rabindra Mohapatra said former sub-registrar Ganesh Chandra Das, head clerk Sk Kalim and senior clerk Bijay Kumar Tarei had registered 52 sale deeds illegally by violating the government norms.
It was learnt that the State had lost around Rs 26 lakh as the officials had allegedly undervalued against the required value as per the land valuation in 2005. They finished registration with back dates without allowing the opposite party to submit no objection.
The then collector Vishal Dev had ordered a probe and subsequently a case was registered in Town police station in this connection. The case was later handed over to Crime Branch.
While as many as 60 persons were accused in the case, 27 among them have been granted anticipatory bail.