MADURAI: In connection with the 2024 property tax fraud that led to a revenue loss of around Rs 25 lakh and more to the Madurai corporation, the city police have arrested seven people, including two Assistant Engineers (AE), in the last three days.
The arrested were data entry operators (DEOs) Dhanasekaran, Sathish, Karthikeyan, their associates Sahahussian Rajesh, and two assistant engineers, Senthilkumar and Rengarajan.
The fraud came to light on September 6, 2024, when then corporation commissioner, Dinesh Kumar, found some irregularities in the records and lodged a complaint with the city police seeking an investigation. An audit team formed by Kumar found that the property taxes of 150 buildings had been deliberately reduced without proper procedures, and their review uncovered irregularities in the records of Urban Tree Information System (UTIS), an online property tax management platform. Later, notices were issued and bill collectors K Ramalingam, P Mariammal, P Ravichandran, M Kannan, and P Aathimoolam were suspended in connection with the charges.
When the investigation was further carried out by the Central Crime Branch (CCB)-II, they found that the fraud occurred between April 1, 2022, and July 31, 2024, where taxes were reduced without proper authorisation, and low property taxes were entered into the UTIS. A case was registered on June 17, 2025, under Sections 406, 465, 466, 468, 477A of the IPC and Sections 66C and 66D of the IT Act.
An officer said, "In connection with the issue, seven people were arrested in the last three days, and subsequently, two more assistant programming officers, Ravi and Kannan, will be arrested."
The official added that based on the investigation, the corporation zonal chairman and councillors would be investigated.
Based on a press release issued by the corporation on Friday, appropriate steps have been taken to prevent such an incident from happening again, and the exact loss will not be known until the complete investigation is over.
Corporation commissioner Chitra Vijayan stated that the audit team estimated the loss to be around Rs 25 lakh.