COIMBATORE: THE police inconvenienced for want of ‘official’ permission! The Coimbatore Rural police have been denied access to documents of the Kannampalayam Town Panchayat, near Sulur, in connection with the gutka manufacturing unit case, as they lack the necessary orders for it.
About month ago, the Sulur police had unearthed an illegal gutka manufacturing unit in Kannampalayam, functioning since 2011. They arrested three workers, including its supervisor, Raghuram, and are looking for the owner, Delhi-based Amit Jain.
Meanwhile, to investigate the suspected role of the town panchayat’s officials and a former president, Murugesan, the police questioned executive officers who had worked in the panchayat between 2011 and 2016.
They then approached the panchayat’s officials for accessing documents on its water tax and property tax during the 2011-16 period. However, the officials refused to give copies of the documents to the Sulur police, as they did not have official permission to get copies of the papers.
The Sulur police said they would get a proper order from the top officials to gain access to the town panchayat documents.
Meanwhile, top officials of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) are questioning the health inspectors who were responsible for the Sulur area for failing to take action against the illegal gutka manufacturing unit. During an internal inquiry in the FSSAI, it was found that supervisor Raghuram and the unit’s owner, Amit Jain, had been booked by the FSSAI in 2013.
