A former Revenue Divisional Officer and eight other government employees were sentenced to a 15-month imprisonment here by the Judicial Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
The accused Christu Raj, who was the RDO of Nagapattinam in 2007, along with eight government officials, purportedly acting on a private complaint had trespassed into a private farm and allegedly destroyed the property of the complainant K. Thiagarajan.
Thiagarajan, a retired health officer, owned a quarter acre farm in Rarandhimangalam in Thirumarugal block of Nagapattinam. Based on a private complaint that the complainant had encroached the land, the then RDO Christhu Raj, along with three VAOs, a Revenue Inspector, two menials and a Panchayat President had trespassed into Thiagarajan’s banana plantation and allegedly vandalised the property. An aggrieved Thiagarajan had moved the court seeking relief. The incident occurred in October 2007. Judicial Magistrate Saraswathi sentenced the nine men to a 15-month imprisonment and three private persons to 27 months. The prime accused Christu Raj is posted as one of the Assistant Administrative Officers in Chidambaram Annamalai University in DRO’s cadre.
