The Crime Branch-CID has arrested one more suspect in the multicrore land scam in Theni district. The fraud reported two years ago involves some Revenue and Survey department officials who allegedly tampered with official records and transferred government poromboke lands to private individuals who sold them as housing plots to various buyers.
The investigating agency apprehended Eswaran, one of the accused, and remanded him in judicial custody. A few government officials and private persons have already been arrested in the case. The CB-CID investigation revealed how the accused officials systematically tampered with ‘Tamil Nilam’ software to create fake records, transferred the ownership to private persons and issued pattas.
Sources in the CB-CID said the poromboke lands worth several crores of rupees located in prime locations in and around Theni were retrieved and restored to the possession of the government after the pattas obtained through fraudulent means were cancelled, thanks to the intervention of C.A. Rishab, the then Sub-Collector of Periyakulam.
