The Right to Information (RTI) Act, an instrument to ferret out information not in public domain, has been allegedly misused by a senior politician and his ‘followers’ in real estate to settle scores over property rights.

The Anti Corruption Bureau officials, who are probing the seizure of Rs. 1.10 crore from Keesara Tahsildar Erva Balaraju Nagaraju, were stunned at the quantum of RTI petitions, filed by the real estate broker K. Anji Reddy who tried to bribe the former and had close ties with a Member of Parliament.

A few RTI petitions are in the possession of The Hindu.

“We have unearthed dozens of RTI petitions filed by the said MP and Anji Reddy and surprisingly all the petitions sought information on lands in litigation,” a senior ACB official told The Hindu on condition of anonymity.

The modus operandi of the accused was to identify a disputed land with the help of Revenue and Land Registration staff.

“Upon receiving the information, the MP and his henchmen resorted to arm-twisting tactics to force the land owners to part with their lands,” he said.

Most of the land pursued by the accused were in and around Hyderabad city, which had seen several fold appreciation in their values. “The said MP has been filing the RTI petitions since he was legislator of a different constituency. He has a team of retired MROs, who will help the politician in identifying the disputed land with their sources in the Revenue Department and file an RTI application,” the officer associated with the investigation of the case, said.

“After getting the information and photocopies of the documents, the team blackmails the wealthy owners and extort money. In case, if the landowner is not from a well-off background, they promise to buy the disputed land and settle the issue,” he said, adding that with the help of the Revenue and Registration Department officials, the team would clear all the litigations and further sell the land at a very high price or convert them into residential plots for sale.

The ACB officials are surprised that Anji Reddy, a class ten fail realtor, has filed dozens of RTI petitions. “We have seized all the documents, including documents pertaining to MPLADS funds, to investigate the case in all possible angles,” he said, adding that Anji Reddy is one of many followers of the MP who were involved in such practices.

He said that Balaraju Nagaraju joined the department as stenographer/typist and rose to the rank of Tahsildar.

In 2011, a disproportionate assets case was booked against him by the ACB, however, further action was stopped after he filed appeals in the court.

“Now, we will file another disproportionate assets case against him, as he is in possession of several immovable properties disproportionate to the known source of income,” the officer added.