CHENNAI: Investigating the multi-crore property tax scam in Madurai Corporation, the Tamil Nadu police have conspicuously omitted the Prevention of Corruption of Act (PCA) and certain sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the FIR, which are scheduled offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), thereby preventing the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from entering the picture.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been probing the allegations of fraudulent manipulation of software to reduce property tax assessments of at least 150 buildings by certain employees of the Madurai Corporation. At least five lower-level corporation employees, a retired assistant commissioner and Madurai Mayor Indrani’s husband Pon Vasanth have been arrested in the case. Pon Vasanth was suspended from the ruling DMK in May for alleged anti-party activities.
The original FIR registered by the Madurai city police on June 17 invoked IPC sections pertaining to criminal breach of trust by public servant (407), forgery (465, 466, 468) and falsification of records (477A).
However, it has skipped Section 467 (forgery of valuable documents), Section 471 (using forged documents or electronic records as genuine), and not invoked Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), Section 420 (cheating) and PCA, despite the alleged involvement of multiple government employees in the scam in which the government lost crores of rupees in tax payment due to alleged forging of electronic records. These omitted sections are scheduled offences under Part A as per Section 2 (1)(y) of the PMLA.
‘CM must ensure real culprits are punished’
There is precedence of invoking PCA in such cases. Investigating an identical scam in Salem Corporation, the Salem detachment of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption in January 2024 had filed a case under the PC Act against N Murugesan, assistant revenue officer, for intentionally under-assessing property taxes and other allegations and thereby causing a loss of Rs 9.63 lakh to the state government.
Meanwhile, Arun Raj, who joined the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) in June after quitting the Indian Revenue Service, in a post on X on Saturday, highlighted the matter and alleged that Sections 120B, 420, 471 of the IPC and the PC Act were “cleverly omitted” so that the ED does not enter the picture. “This has not been done to protect lower-level employees; already many top leaders of DMK are under ED’s investigation and the move is to prevent another probe against them,” he said. Raj also urged CM MK Stalin and the Tamil Nadu DGP to invoke the sections and conduct a thorough probe to punish the real perpetrators.
DIG Abhinav Kumar, who heads the SIT which is investigating the Madurai case, did not respond to queries seeking comment. (The police had invoked sections of IPC and not BNSS since the alleged crime occurred prior to BNSS coming into force on July 1, 2024).