THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) which probed the Pattoor land scam has found that an area of 30.98 cents of land forming part of the construction site is likely to be ‘puramboke’ or government land. The probe report of the Vigilance ADGP Jacob Thomas, submitted before the Lok Ayukta on Friday, also termed 15 officials, including present District Collector Biju Prabhakar and former District Collector K N Satheesh, guilty of maladministration in various degrees.
Meanwhile, Lok Ayukta Division Bench comprising Pius C Kuriakose and Justice K P Balachandran admitted a petition filed by social activist Joy Kaitharam based on the Vigilance report. It also served notices on the 15 officials and asked them to be present before it on February 6. In the order, the Lok Ayukta observed that the Vigilance report contained startling findings.
It is found in the report that in addition to the 24 cents of land forming part of the construction site clearly found to be ‘puramboke’, an additional extent of 6.98 cents is also likely to be ‘puramboke’, which means that the total extent of ‘puramboke’ will be 30.978 cents, the Lok Ayukta order said. Though Chief Secretary E K Bharat Bhushan and former Additional Chief Secretary Nivedita P Haran were also respondents in the case, the Vigilance had not mentioned their names in the list of 15 officials. Apart from Prabhakar and Satheesh, the others in the list are Deputy Collector (LR) Sheeba George; Revenue Divisional Officer Jayaprakash; Water Authority Executive Engineer S Somasekharan Nair; Water Authority Executive Engineer K K Madhu; Public Works overseers, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, M Kumari and Jayakumar; Assistant Engineer, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation S Thulasidharan; Assistant Executive Engineers, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, Mathew M John and J Ansar; Executive Engineers Dinesh and S Anandu Raju; Assistant Engineer, Thiruvanathapuram Corporation, K Ramanan and registered architect N Mahesh.
While serving the notice, the Lok Ayukta also mentioned that the report of the Advocate Commissioner, which was awaited, would contain more precise data as to the extent of ‘puramboke’ which form part of the site.