Parandur land registered illegally to increase guideline value: NGO

CHENNAI: Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-graft organisation, alleged that the registration department has registered 73 acres of land in Parandur to benefit a private firm by registering land in square foot instead of acre so as to increase the guideline value. Parandur has been making headlines as both the state and centre have proposed the location for the new international airport.

In his complaint to the chief secretary V Irai Anbu, commercial taxes and registration department minister P Moorthy and directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption, the convenor of the Arappor Iyakkam Jayaram Venkatesan alleged that sale deeds of properties belonging to a private silk firm in Parandhur and Nelvai villages were presented for registration at Kancheepuram Joint II sub-registrar office in March 2020.

"The sub-registrar (R Prakash) raised various issues regarding the pending documents. The village map, encumbrance certificates and the surrounding survey numbers were still in acres. The sub-registrar pointed out about the malafide intention, since 'Green Airport Project', was at conceptual state and deeds presented for registration seems to have been done to convert a large extent of land in many survey numbers to square feet, " the complaint said.

The sub-registrar also warned, as per the complaint, that the registration would cause a huge loss to the government as guideline values in square feet will be much greater than guideline value in acres.

"However, additional IG of registration department KV Srinivasan wrote a letter to consider the land as individual plots, fix their guideline value, register them and to release them after registration to the petitioner immediately. Meanwhile, Sub-registrar R Prakash was transferred and another sub-registrar named Rajadurai was brought in his place. He registered all the four documents in July 2020," Jayaram Venkatesan said.

He added that the guideline value per acre in the village is Rs. 8.71 lakh, however 49.5 cents of land has been registered in square feet for Rs. 32.40 lakh. "This means the guideline value of 1 acre or 43560 square feet has been increased to Rs 65.45 lakh. This drastic increase from Rs 8.71 lakh to Rs 65.45 lakh through fraud and manipulation by the registration department will potentially lead to a huge loss to the exchequer at the time of acquisition, " he said.

The complaint pointed out that the government has to pay Rs. 191 Crore if the compensation for 73 acres.

Jayaram urged the government to file FIR against officials involved in the registration and cancel the registration.