Six held in land scam worth ₹500 crore

72-year-old former karanam, the kingpin, is among the accused

The Crime Investigation Department (CID) unearthed a major land scam worth ₹500 crore by arresting six persons, including the kingpin, who had allegedly alienated 2,320 acres of government land.

The scam had come to light after Somala mandal tahsildar A. Syamprasad Reddy had lodged a complaint on May 29, 2020, against three persons – Rajan, Dharani and Madhusudhan, accusing them of obtaining pattadar passbooks by manipulating revenue documents, both physically and online.

Superintendent of Police S. Senthil Kumar transferred the case to the CID, and asked its Deputy Superintendent of Police G. Ravikumar to expedite the investigation.

Tracing the case to a similar one that had surfaced in 2017 at Peddapanjani, where the accused trio was the same, Mr. Ravikumar found the involvement of M. Ganesh Pillai (72), who had served as karanam of 184 Gollapalle village of Yadamari mandal during 1977-1984.

He had subsequently joined the government service as a Village Administrative Officer in 1992, following the abolition of the Karanam system, and retired from service in 2010.

Pillai had allegedly misused his knowledge and experience of land records and tried to alienate 2,320 acres of land under 93 survey numbers in 13 mandals of Chittoor district between 2005 and 2010.

Mr. Ravikumar said it was Ganesh Pillai who got the 2,320 acres of alienated land worth ₹500 crore registered in the name of his children M.G. Madhusudhan, M.G. Rajan, V. Komala and K. Dharani, who had been named co-accused in the case.

Adavi Ramana (61), having a criminal background and who is also accused of complicity in Pillai’s forgery attempt, was nabbed.

The CID will present the accused before the court soon.

Source: Read Full Article