CHENNAI: The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) has booked a town planning inspector of Tambaram Corporation on charges of demanding a bribe of Rs 1 lakh to clear three building plan approvals submitted by a licensed surveyor.
Sources in the agency said that the corporation’s offices where town planning inspector Nagarajan was accused of taking the bribe were raided on Thursday evening.
Though the case was booked on May 31, the agency uploaded the FIR on the website only on Friday night, while Assembly proceedings pertaining to the housing department and CMDA were underway.
According to DVAC, licensed surveyor Ganesan had approached DVAC with a complaint regarding a bribe demanded by Nagarajan in clearing three building plan approvals of his clients. Ganesan said that the plans were uploaded to the Tamil Nadu government’s single window portal for planning permission on May 10 and a service request number was generated. He also gave hard copies of this to the corporation officials on May 13. However, the files were kept pending.
When he went to check on the status of the approvals on May 22, Nagarajan allegedly told him that he would have to do a site inspection. Ganesan was asked to send a representative from his office to accompany Nagarajan.
During the site inspection, Nagarajan allegedly demanded ‘government fees’ from Ganesan’s office assistant — he demanded Rs 25,000 for the first building, Rs 50,000 for one house which was ‘very big’ and Rs 25,000 for the third, Ganesan said in his complaint. The agency has filed an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Nagarajan.