Madras High Court asks for CB-CID probe into the fraud committed by TNHB.
Picture for representational purpose only.
Chennai: The Madras High Court has ordered a CB-CID probe into the fraud committed by officials of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) in collusion with land-grabbers, executing a sale deed in favour of a dead person.
Allowing a petition from M. Fathima Beevi, wife of the deceased allottee, Justice K. K. Sasidharan directed the authorities to cancel the sale deed and execute a fresh one in favour of the petitioner within three weeks, besides taking disciplinary action against the officials of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board.
“This petition is a classic example of how the officials of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board conduct the affairs of the instrumentality of the state and the modus operandi of black sheep working on the board,” the judge observed.
The petitioner’s husband, Sheik Salahudeen, was allotted an MIG plot in Manali by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board in March 1989. After his death in October 1996, the petitioner settled her dues through monthly installments and approached the authorities to execute the sale deed in her favour.
Her suspicions were aroused when they kept avoiding her, and applied for an encumbrance certificate which indicated that a sale deed had been executed in favour of her husband.
The petitioner, convinced that her husband had been impersonated, asked the authorities to cancel the fraudulent sale deed, but they took no action. It was clear that the officials of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board assisted in the forgery and impersonation, the Tamil Nadu Housing Board submitting that the police had begun criminal proceedings against them.
The executive engineer said casually that after conclusion of the criminal proceedings initiated by the police, action would be taken to cancel the sale deed already registered and to issue a fresh one in favour of the petitioner. The petitioner was now 56 years old. The Tamil Nadu Housing Board had wanted her to wait for years together under the premise that the investigation was pending.
The indifferent attitude adopted by the board would only encourage land grabbing, the judge said. The officials of the board would continue to cheat people if such illegal activities were permitted and immediate criminal and disciplinary action were not initiated, the judge added.
( Source : dc )
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