NHAI lost Rs 200 crore in Tamil Nadu land scam

CHENNAI: A land acquisition scam, which caused about Rs 200 crore loss to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), has surfaced in Kancheepuram district.
Based on a complaint from tahsildar G Venkatesan, Kancheepuram police have filed cases against a former Sriperumbudur tahsildar, an assistant settlement officer and a private landowner identified as Ashish Jain, also known as Ashish Mehta. While Rs 33 crore was paid to Mehta for a parcel of 7.67 acres of land for which fake patta was prepared, officials say the same modus operandi was used to create fake documents for at least 82 acres of land for which ₹200 crore was paid by NHAI as compensation.
Given the size of the fraud and involvement of central funds, land administration commissioner Pankaj Kumar Bansal has recommended NHAI to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Documents accessed by TOI showed how NHAI acquired 2.5 acres of the 7.67 acres of land owned by Ashish Mehta at Beemanthangal village near Sriperumbudur for six-laning of National Highway-4.
This piece of land was originally classified as ‘anadeenam’ land, vested with the government.
But Shanmugam, an assistant settlement officer, prepared fake documents using survey numbers of a different village from Poonamallee in Thiruvallur district to provide patta for 7.67 acres, an investigation by the director of survey in 2020 found.
When a related case came up before the Madras high court, then tahsildar of Sriperumbudur G Radhakrishnan, the only respondent, failed to submit the fact that forged documents were used to get patta for the government land. Commissioner Bansal recommended the Kancheepuram district collector to book Ashish Mehta, the ASO and the ex-tahsildar for entering into a criminal conspiracy to defraud the exchequer.
Based on this, G Venkatesan, the present tahsildar, filed a complaint, and the three have been booked for fraud, cheating and criminal conspiracy by use of forged documents.
The district administration has now ordered an inquiry into pattas issued to all plots in the vicinity at Beemanthangal village. “We have found that pattas were issued to 82 acres of government (anadeenam and meikal poramboke) land in and around the village, and orders have been passed to cancel the patta,” said a revenue official. NHAI could have suffered close to ₹200 crore loss because of the fraud, he said.
While patta was issued to Ashish Mehta in 2000, the NHAI awarded the compensation in July 2018. The land administration commissioner proceedings, recommending CBI probe, are dated March 17, 2021 The FIR was filed on April 23, 2020. The follow-up inspection by district revenue officials for the 82 acres started this week.