THENI: Officials working in Periyakulam sub-registrar office were involved in the illegal sale of 182.50 acres of government land valued at Rs 2.13 crore in the locality, sources said. TNIE had previously reported on a Department of Geology and Mines report which said minerals worth around Rs 4.5 crore were mined from these lands. The case is being probed by CB-CID.
According to sources, revenue officials in Periyakulam issued pattas to more than 150 people in one day to facilitate the illegal sale. “Only District Collector has the power to distribute government land to private parties. However, without the knowledge of the Collector, digital keys of RDOs were used. How they got hold of the digital keys will only be known after the investigation.
They also created many sub-divisions. Let us say, for example, that government land with survey number 100 has 100 hectares of land. Leaving aside one portion of land to survey No 100, they created additional sub-divisions for the remaining part, such as survey Nos 100/1, 100/2 etc in the name of private parties by manipulating the software and issued pattas. After eight days, the properties were sold to several people,” the source said.
“Further, these lands were sold to private parties without the mother document. The sellers produced police FIR copies at the sub-registrar office mentioning that the mother documents were stolen. Officials in the sub-registrar office maintain a register to detect these scams. But it did not happen. Without the knowledge of officials of the sub-registrar office, this scam may not have happened. All these findings have been sent to higher officials. Action will be taken on officials of the sub-registrar office as well,” the source said.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, former Periyakulam AIADMK secretary Anna Prakash, surveyor Pitchaimani, tashildhar Krishnakumar and another person, Muthuvel Pandian, approached the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court for anticipatory bail. The court cancelled their bail petitions and ordered them to appear before the District Crime Police Station within 10 days and submit required documents.