The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption has booked two Sub-Registrars on charges of allowing fraudulent registration of a prime property at Thiruvanmiyur here using fake documents.
Acting on reliable information that the accused officials had abused their official position by indulging in irregularities in registering and releasing property documents, the agency conducted a preliminary enquiry and established prima facie evidence of the allegations.
A corruption case was registered against N.M. Ilaya Perumal and J. Ananthi, who served as Sub-Registrars, Joint-I Sub-Registrar Office, Saidapet, during 2007 and 2009-10 respectively.
The DVAC case is that in 1960, Lalitha Bhandari and her four daughters namely Sumithra, Saraswathi, Vimala and Geetha, bought 2.03 acres in Valmiki Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur. The land was purchased from Jamuna and Panchanatha Chetty and registered at Joint-II Sub Registrar Office, Saidapet. They were the sole owners of the property.
Legal heir claim
In 2007, two persons R. Vimal Raj and R. Vijay Kumar, fraudulently claiming to be the legal heirs of Lalitha Bhandari and her four daughters, executed a sale deed document for the land in favour of one G.V.N. Mohanraju. The sale deed was registered at Joint-I Sub Registrar Office, Saidapet, by the then Sub Registrar, Ilaya Perumal.
After the fraudulent registration, Mohanraju executed a mortgage deed favouring M/s Future Metals Private Ltd., represented by its chairman Naveen Srinivasan and got a loan of ₹13.20 crore. Three years later, a person impersonating himself as Chenthil Kannan, executed a fraudulent receipt deed for the same property favouring V. Vimal. The registration was allowed by Ananthi, who was then the Sub-Registrar, Joint-I Sub-Registrar Officer, Saidapet.
Fraud established
Acting on a complaint lodged by Saraswathi, Vimala and Geetha, the Inspector-General of Registration initiated an inquiry, which revealed that the documents relating to the property owned by the petitioners were registered fraudulently.
The DVAC, in its First Information Report (FIR), said the accused officers had not scrutinised the documents presented before them for registration and failed to check the documents submitted with the official documents in their custody and the database on the computer before releasing the registered documents. They also did not insist on production of previous original deeds through which the accused persons claimed to have acquired right over the property and also the revenue records to verify the facts on record.
Investigators accused the Sub-Registrars booked in the case of not calling for the encumbrance certificate for the property to be registered and not taking steps to confirm the genuineness of the legal heir certificate with the documents enclosed by the accused persons.
The accused officers violated the direction of law knowing well that the accused persons had no right over the property in the document presented before them for registration but allowed the process “to obtain undue pecuniary advantage”. The two Sub-Registrars were booked for criminal misconduct, criminal breach of trust and other offences punishable under the IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
