MADURAIL: The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) registered a case against a sub registrar for registering a land belonging to Madurai Meenakshi Amman temple in favour of an individual and causing Rs 1.88 crore loss to the government in the process.
According to police, the incident happened between September 2019 and August 2020 when the suspect, M Balamurugan, was the sub registrar at the Othakadai sub-registrar office in Madurai (currently he is working at Kanniyakumari district).
In general, the temple land comes under the control of the HR&CE department and is maintained by a trust - Sooravalli Subbaiyer Trust. The land cannot be registered without a 'no objection' certificate from the commissioner of the department.
Sources said between September 2019 and August 2020, I Vetrivel and P Senthilkumar approached the Tallakulam sub registrar Manimurugan to buy the land owned by the temple. When Manimurugan refused to do so, they approached Othakadai sub registrar, M Balamurugan, who registered 60 cents (26133.54 sq ft) of land in the name of Vetrivel by falsely mentioning that the land is under his jurisdiction. "There were two offences: he registered a land coming under the jurisdiction of other sub registrars (Othakadai) plus, he failed to obtain the 'no objection certificate from the HR&CE department," the police said.
The sub registrar falsely claimed he had obtained permission for selling the land when the officials demanded an explanation, the police added.
Due to this unauthorised registration, the government sustained a loss of Rs 1.88 crore. It is to be noted that DVAC had registered a disproportionate assets case against him last year.