A woman hailing from Thanjavur but now residing in Bangalore has filed a petition in the Madras High Court Bench here accusing former Transport Minister K. N. Nehru and his brother K. N. Ramajeyam (since dead) of forcibly grabbing away a hotel owned by her near the new bus stand in Thanjavur town last year.
According to the petitioner, K. Nagarani, she had taken loan from a nationalised bank to build the hotel, Inka International, in a commercial plot owned by her. Since she could not repay the monthly instalments on time, the bank issued a newspaper publication to bring the hotel for public auction.
On coming to know about the auction, an individual named Rajaboobathi, a close relative of the former Minister, and his son Paranitharan approached her with an offer to purchase the hotel, on behalf of Mr. Nehru and his brother, after repaying her bank loan and preventing the property from being auctioned.
The petitioner reportedly rejected the offer. However, she agreed to the other option of giving away the hotel on a three-year lease on payment of Rs. 5 crore. On the day when she was proceeding to the Sub-Registrar's office for registering the lease deed, she was stopped half way near the Periyar College at Vallam.
Officials of the Registration Department had come there in a car and they obtained her signatures in documents already prepared by them. The petitioner was not allowed to peruse the documents.
She was taken to a hotel in Tiruchi and paid Rs. 1 lakh in cash apart from a cheque for Rs. 11.25 lakh in favour of her son.
When she demanded the rest of the agreed amount, the petitioner was allegedly threatened with dire consequences and told that what she had signed was a sale deed and not a lease deed. She also accused the former Minister's brother of having asked her over phone to leave the State if she was interested in the well being of her family.
Thereafter, the petitioner migrated to Bangalore. She was not even allowed to take away articles worth Rs. 46 lakh from her hotel in Thanjavur.
She also accused the Thanjavur District Crime Branch police of inaction despite lodging a complaint in person on December 2, 2011.
In the present case, she sought for a direction to the police to register a case under Sections 327 (voluntarily causing hurt to extort property), 347 (wrongful confinement to extort property), 365 (kidnapping or abducting), 420 (cheating) ,506 part II (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
