Four years after the demolition of the four illegal apartments in Maradu, the Crime Branch is all set to seek government sanction for prosecuting the accused in the illegal construction of the apartments Alfa Serene and H2O Holy Faith.
The Crime Branch, which has completed the investigation in the two cases it had booked, will approach the State government later this month seeking permission for criminal prosecution. The Crime Branch probe in the case of the apartment Jain Coral Cove was under way, sources said.
The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) was assigned the task of investigating the case of Golden Kayaloram, the fourth apartment that was demolished.
K.A. Devassy, a local CPI(M) leader and the former president of the Maradu grama panchayat, where the illegal apartments had come up, has been arraigned as the fifth and the sixth accused in the two cases. Mr. Devassy is the only civic representative from the Maradu panchayat to be arraigned as the accused in the cases. The builders are the first accused in the two cases. The then secretary, junior superintendent, and section clerk of the Maradu panchayat have been enlisted as the other accused in the cases.
The State government had appointed S. Chandrasekharan Nair as the Special Public Prosecutor in the case.
The apartment complexes that came up at Maradu on the banks of the Vembanad lake in violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules were demolished in January 2020, following a Supreme Court order. The court had ordered the recovery of the cost of demolition and the compensation awarded to the apartment owners from the builders.
The Crime Branch had booked cases invoking the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which deals with criminal misconduct by a public servant against civic officials for abusing their official position to make undue monetary benefits to builders and themselves and thereby causing loss to the exchequer. The cost of demolition of the apartments and the compensation awarded to the apartment owners by the government have also been estimated as the loss suffered by the government. The investigators have also booked the builders as well as the officials for conspiracy under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code.
