Chennai, Sep 21:
After the Palani Lord Dhandayuthapani Temple and Madurai Meenakshi Temple land rows, yet another frauduent Temple land deal has surfaced at Srirangam in Trichy, following which police have registered cases against a key functionary of the main Opposition DMK, a Sub-Registrar and four others.
The land that was fraudulently registered belonged to the World famous Lord Sri Ranaganathaswamy temple in Srirangam.
On a complaint lodged by Temple Joint Commissioner S Sivaramkumar, cases were registered against the six people including DMK’s Srirangam Area Secretary N.Ramkumar, last week by the Trichy City Crime Branch (CCB) slapping charges of cheating and indulging in land fraud in 2022-23, besides criminal conspiracy, forgery among others. They were booked under various sections of the IPC including 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuale security will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
The piece of temple land that was fraudulently transferred and registered was said to 7,515 sqft (valued about Rs 50 crores) in Srirangam, which was part of a larger 5.87-acre property belonging to the temple.
A DMK office headed by Ramkunar was currently functioning on the disputed land, police said, adding four private individuals, claiming to own the land, had registered it illegally in the name of Ramkumar using forged documents, despite being fully aware that the land parcel belonged to the Srirangam temple. The amount involved in the alleged land transfer was said to over Rs two crores.
The FIR alleges that Padma Rengarajan of Chennai and Vijaya Krishnasamy of Bengaluru sold the land to Ramkumar for Rs 1.45 crore in December 2022, claiming they had rights over it. Later, R.Soundararajan, the brother of Padma Rengarajan and Vijaya Krishnasamy, subsequently claimed a share in the property and executed a sale deed in Ramkumar’s favour after receiving Rs 72.5 lakh.
Another person named Venkata Varadhan later claimed a share and executed another sale deed in Ramkumar’s favour for Rs 72.5 lakh. The three transactions involved a total consideration of Rs 2.9 crore, according to the FIR.
The police have alleged that the accused knew the property belonged to the temple and colluded to create documents showing private ownership. The then Sub-Registrar had allegedly registered the sale and correction deeds despite receiving communications from the temple administration objecting to transactions involving the property.
However, Ramkumar, denying any wrongdoing, told reporters that the land belonged to private individuals and that the registration was carried out properly after the Sub-Registrar verified the documents.
He also said the dispute was already pending before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court and questioned why a police complaint had been filed when the matter was before the court.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu HR and CE Minister S.Ramesh, a native of Srirangam, said he had received several complaints from the public stating that Ramkumar had illegally transferred a portion of the temple land in his name and was using it as his party office. The HR ad CE department conducted a detailed inquiry and collected evidences which established that the land belonged to the temple.
He said the DMK functionary had used forged documents amd provided false informtion thatthe land had belonged to private individuals in order to get its registered in his name without the original deed.
Terming it as a big fraud, the Minister a complaint was lodged with the police with supporting evidences and the probe was underway.