Nivedita Haran went out of the way
IAS official found to have facilitated illegal construction on Pattoor land
By : Gilvester Assary
Update: 2014-07-24 03:48 GMT
Thiruvananthapuram: Ms Nivedita P. Haran, former principal secretary, revenue, had allegedly gone out of her way to help the private realtor in facilitating the “illegal” construction of the residential flat at Pattoor, according to documents in the possession of DC.
They reveal that the officer had initiated steps in this connection, right from the beginning, even months before the Revenue Minister put his signature on the file giving the green signal for construction of the controversial apartment complex.
It may be recalled that the Deputy Accountant General had conveyed to Nivedita in April 2009 that the company held excess land and even referred to the possibility of possessing puramboke. Following his letter, the Land Revenue Commissionerate looked into the facts.
On May 5, 2009, the Land Revenue Commissioner pointed out that the company had encroached on 16.5 cents of government land. Moreover, he recommended five urgent measures, including cancellation of the transfer of registry and thereby ownership of the realtor, registration of a case under Land Conservancy Act and stop memo for freezing all construction activities.
Despite the urgent measures suggested by the commissioner, quite inexplicably, the principal secretary did not act upon the report for ten months. It was only on March 23, 2010 that government instructions were conveyed to the then collector Sanjay Kaul “to implement the five recommendations of the commissioner and report compliance to the government within a week positively.”