An official from the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department, who accused the judiciary of constructing a combined court building in Kangeyam on a land allegedly belonging to his department and demanded ₹450 crore as compensation, has now admitted that his accusation was false.
The admission was made during an inquiry conducted by Tiruppur Principal District and Sessions Judge S. Alli on January 8, legal sources privy to the developments told The Hindu . M. Kannadhasan, an Assistant Commissioner of HR&CE, who was the Executive Officer of Subramanyaswamy Temple, Sivanmalai, wrote the letter in October 2019. The letter was addressed to higher officials in the HR&CE Department and the judiciary, including Ms. Alli. He calculated this amount for a period between July 14, 2012 and October 31, 2019, according to legal sources.
Land acquisition
Following this, Ms. Alli ordered an inquiry based on records available with the Revenue Department, which revealed that the land in Kangeyam, upon which the court building was constructed, was acquired as early as in 1932 by the then Coimbatore District Collector. In 1999, the State government issued an order (G.O. No. 156) to hand over the land to the judiciary. The HR&CE Department had nothing to do with this piece of land, legal sources said.
During the inquiry on January 8, Mr. Kannadhasan allegedly admitted that he wrote the letter in his “assumption.”
In a statement, he wrote that he was not aware that the land was handed over to the judiciary until the inquiry process began, according to legal sources. Ms. Alli is yet to decide on further action in this issue.
A senior HR&CE official, who attended the inquiry, said he was unaware of the intent of Mr. Kannadhasan in writing a letter without proper evidence. Further action would be taken against him after obtaining all details of the inquiry, the HR&CE official said. Mr. Kannadhasan was not available for comment.
