The Lok Ayukta on Wednesday ordered the constitution of a special team “of competent police officers with integrity and efficiency to identify the public servants guilty of corruption, nepotism, and favouritism in the matter of issuance of orders/permits etc in favour of the builder T.S. Ashok for the construction of a flat by name Artech Empire at Pattoor” here.
ADGP, Vigilance, Jacob Thomas, will head the team. The team will comprise officers of his choice.
Presiding judges Pius C. Kuriakose and K.P. Balachandran said they “were convinced that certain public servants, including some who are arrayed as respondents in the complaint, are guilty of corruption and other illegalities”. However, they were “not inclined to name them at the moment”.
It ordered that all construction activities on the site be stopped temporarily till the government excess land through which a sewerage line runs was identified and demarcated.
The complainant, Joy Kaitharathil, 62, had told the court that the respondents had forged records, and falsified orders and reports to appropriate 16.5 cents of public land, valued at more than Rs.8 crore, for constructing a high-end apartment and shopping complex.
He said the Revenue Recovery (RR) Department had found that excess land had been illegally assigned to the original owner of the plot and later mutated in the name of the realtor who bought it.
The RR Department had stopped all transactions relating to the land. It ordered the cancellation of the transfer of registry in the name of company.
The land was to be surveyed to demarcate the pipeline land.
