Telangana revenue officer caught red-handed accepting ₹1.1 crore bribe, arrested

The revenue officer allegedly took a bribe of ₹1.10 crore from a real estate developer from Uppal to settle a dispute pertaining to 19.39 acres of agricultural land at Rampally Dayara village on the outskirts of Hyderabd.

Telangana’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Saturday arrested a tehsildar (block revenue officer) after catching him red-handed while allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹1.10 crore in cash from a property dealer the previous evening.

ACB officials took more than five hours to count the cash that the revenue officer had received as a bribe(HT PHOTO)

A team of ACB officials led by Hyderabad zonal deputy director Ramana Kumar and Ranga Reddy-Medchal-Malkajgiri deputy superintendent of police Suryanarayana, acting on a tip-off, raided the residence of Erva Balaraj Nagaraju (47), tehsildar of Keesara block at his residence at Arul Colony, Kapra on the outskirts of Hyderabad on Friday evening.

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They caught him red-handed while accepting a bribe of over ₹1.10 crore from real estate developer Chowla Srinath Yadav (50) from Uppal to settle a dispute pertaining to 19.39 acres of agricultural land at Rampally Dayara village on the city’s outskirts.

The ACB sleuths took Srinath Yadav, real estate broker Kandadi Anji Reddy (40) from Keesara and also Rampally Dayara village revenue assistant Bongu Sairaj (32) into custody along with the tehsildar.

“The accused would be produced before the special judge for ACB cases, Hyderabad,” a statement from the ACB director general said.

According to the statement, Nagaraju demanded ₹2 crore as bribe from Srinath Yadav of Sri Satya Developers, Uppal to settle the land issue pertaining to 19.39 acres in Rampally Dayara village and process the file.

Searches continued at Nagaraju’s residence till late in the night. Apart from the bribe amount, the authorities also seized unaccounted cash of ₹28 lakh, besides ₹8 lakh accounted cash, from his residence. “This is the largest amount of cash ever seized by the ACB from any official in the state so far. It took more than five hours to count the cash that he had received as a bribe,” an ACB official familiar with the development said.

The ACB also confiscated several documents from the possession of Nagaraju pertaining to land details of a bank locker, besides about half a kilo of gold ornaments. Many immovable properties belonging to Nagaraju were identified.

Further investigation of the case is in progress, the ACB statement said.