The Madras High Court has restrained the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) from taking any coercive action against Indian Forest Service officer K. Rajangam and two other forest officials pursuant to a case booked against them for having allegedly swindled ₹1.69 crore of public money allotted for laying roads in forests.
Justice G. Chandrasekharan passed the interim order on the petitions filed by the trio to get the First Information Report (FIR) quashed. Though the case was booked against four officials — Rajangam, V.A. Saravanan, R. Murugesan and G. Baskar — only the first three accused have approached the court so far with a plea to quash the FIR.
Since certain personal allegations of abuse of authority had been levelled against DVAC Deputy Superintendent of Police V. Krishnaraj, who was impleaded by name in Rajangam’s petition, the judge granted time till April 5 for the DSP to file his counter-affidavit and directed the investigating agency not to take any coercive action till then.
According to the prosecution, the Tamil Nadu government had in 2019 decided to improve 3,350 km of forest roads. It sanctioned ₹57.70 crore on October 3, 2019 for improvement and maintenance of 107 forest roads running to a length of 576.972 km in the Tiruchi and Harur forest engineering divisions.
Improvement of a road from the Yercaud foothills to the Kadaiyampatti forest was one of the components of the proposed work, and it was estimated to cost ₹1.69 crore. Instead of inviting a single tender for the entire length of the road, the four officials, in collusion with a contractor, divided it into seven parts to reduce the participation of bidders.
After receiving only two bids, they awarded the work to S. Uthirasamy of Gangan and Company. Thereafter, without carrying out any work, the forest officials and the contractor swindled ₹1.69 crore that was deposited in the latter’s account on the basis of false entries in the measurement books and fake bills, the prosecution claimed.
The DVAC had registered the FIR suo motu against the four officials and the contractor on January 21, 2022 under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and the Indian Penal Code. The government had on August 27, 2021 granted approval for registering the case against the public servants.
