The State Cabinet on Wednesday decided to shift Thiruvananthapuram Subcollector Divya S. Iyer to the post of Deputy Secretary in the Local Self-Government Department. The transfer comes against the backdrop of an allegation against her over the transfer of a piece of revenue land at Varkala to a private individual, over which an official-level probe is currently on.
The 27 cents at Airoor in Varkala was taken over by the tahsildar concerned in July last year. The individual who claims to be the owner of the land approached the Kerala High Court and it asked the Subcollector to take a decision on the issue. Following this, she cancelled the tahsildar’s land takeover and ordered return of the land to the private individual.
Varkala MLA V. Joy petitioned the Revenue Minister and the Chief Minister against the Subcollector’s decision, alleging that she took an arbitrary decision to hand over the land which belonged to the Revenue Department to a private individual. The Revenue Minister then cancelled the Subcollector’s order and asked the Land Revenue Commissioner to probe the matter.
As per the Land Revenue Commissioner’s report, the Subcollector erred in her decision. The District Collector was asked to conduct a hearing with the complainant, the private individual and the Subcollector. In the hearing, the Subcollector maintained that the tahsildar had considered the land as an encroachment based on a non-existent survey number. She had only reversed the order and not given any new land to the private individual. The individual also claimed to have not encroached upon any revenue land.
Similar allegation
After the hearing, the District Collector ordered a resurvey of the 27 cents of land.
Meanwhile, a similar allegation was raised against the Subcollector related to a land located at Kuttichal, near Kattakada.
