New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has flagged alleged large-scale corruption in Gujarat’s online land records and revenue mechanism, saying local government officials exploited loopholes in a system designed to eliminate avenues for corruption.
Last week, the agency arrested former Surendranagar district collector Rajendrakumar Patel in a money-laundering case linked to the approval process for converting agricultural land to non-agricultural land on the Integrated Online Revenue Applications (IORA) portal.
The case marked its first action against a senior official of the Gujarat government. The agency found that applications for land records and change-of-use approvals on the portal were downloaded, printed, and used to demand bribes of up to Rs 10 per square metre to fast-track clearances.
It said it had identified 800 applications approved by the Surendranagar district administration through the IORA portal, with Patel as the final approving authority, resulting in alleged proceeds of crime of Rs 10 crore.
The agency added that the funds were only a “part” of the larger scheme.
The ED submitted these findings before an Ahmedabad court while seeking Patel’s custody.
Patel, an IAS officer of the 2015 batch of the Gujarat cadre, served as Surendranagar district collector till 24 December last year. A resident of Trent village from Ahmedabad and a dental graduate, he was removed from the district after the state Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) booked him, his personal assistant, and subordinates for corruption, including the granting of approvals for land-use changes. He was suspended from the service Sunday.
Patel, who also has a Master of Arts in Public Policy, was transferred to the district in February last year.
The agency raided the Surendranagar collectorate on 23 December when it recovered cash and other alleged incriminating material, prompting it to write to the Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which led to registration of an FIR and Patel’s arrest Friday.
In a written communication to the Gujarat ACB, a copy of which ThePrint has seen, the ED said the Surendrenagar collectorate under Patel had fixed a bribe of Rs 10 per square metre for approvals under section 65(B) of the Land Revenue Code, 1879, which allows change of use of land for “bona fide industrial purposes”.
The agency attached a copy of a loose sheet recovered from revenue officer Chandrasinh Bhupatsinh Mori’s premises during searches that had recorded a bribe of Rs 26,17,320 for approval for 2,61,732 square metres of land, which works out to Rs 10 per square metre, as allegedly admitted by Mori to investigators.
Another sheet the agency flagged to the ACB suggested that Mori allegedly received more than Rs 1 crore in bribes, with Patel receiving 50 percent of the overall amount.
A Gujarat government official told ThePrint that the scale of the racket called for a review of the land approval processes.
“The scale of the bribery racket flagged by the Enforcement Directorate and simplicity with which the entire mechanism was exploited defeats the purpose of the introduction of IORA, which was made a direct platform to cut through the middlemen and both speed up the process and chances of exchange of bribes with a set deadline for approval,” said the official. Adding, “Surely this will need a relook and further strengthening of the land revenue process for a corruption-proof mechanism.”
Patel’s advocate, Samir Gogda, alleged that the agency acted beyond its jurisdiction because the searches on 23 December began even before the FIR was registered, which he said is a requirement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. “The search is illegal and vexatious. It is liable to be set aside, and a finding may be recorded in the order showing pre-mediated and targeted investigation against the arrestee,” Gogda argued.
Print outs, rate chart and ‘speed money’
A revamped IORA portal was launched in November 2019, and according to government estimates, 17.9 lakh applications have been approved through the it in the last three years.
These documents included updated land records, inheritance entries, and non-agricultural (NA) permissions within a 30-35-day timeframe.
The publicly stated purpose of the digital platform was to eliminate intermediaries and avenues for corruption by providing direct access to authorities.
However, in Surendranagar district, the ED told the court, district administration officials, led by former district collector Patel, used to download the entire list of applications, print them, and demand a bribe of Rs 5 to Rs 10 per square metre as “speed money” for faster clearance of applications.
These applications for change of land use were made under Sections 54 and 55 of the Saurashtra Gharkhed Tenancy Settlement and Agricultural Lands Ordinance, 1949, and Sections 65 and 65(B) of the Land Revenue Code, 1879, which set the terms and conditions for the conversion of agricultural land into industrial land.
“The bribe was collected in cash as speed money to process the applications, and the present accused was the final approving authority,” the agency claimed in its remand application seeking Patel’s custody.
The agency alleged that as the ultimate authority approving such applications, Patel got 50 percent of the bribe, followed by Additional Collector R.K. Oja with a 25 percent cut. Revenue officers Mori and Mayur Dave had a 10 and 5 percent cuts, respectively.
When the agency raided Mori on 23 December, it seized what it said were 68 loose sheets containing handwritten and printed records of application numbers, land particulars, applicants’ names, amounts of bribe demanded and received, names of intermediaries involved, and allocation and sharing of bribe money among public officials.
“The entries in the seized documents, including specific instances where bribes were received from individual applicants and aggregated at the end of each sheet, thereby establishing conscious possession, control, and accounting of proceeds of crime,” the agency submitted in the remand application.
In his statement to agency officials, Mori allegedly admitted that Patel was the primary recipient of the bribes, and that his personal assistant, Jayrajsinh Zala, was both collecting and keeping records of the bribes before handing them over to Patel.
Zala also admitted that Patel received 50 percent of the bribes collected for granting permission to change land use, the agency told the court.
The agency told the court that digital evidence recovered from Mori’s mobile phone—including WhatsApp communications, PDF files and photos shared with clerk Mayursinh D. Gohil—showed records of bribe collections and their periodic transmission to the district collector’s personal assistant, which “prima facie shows that the entire network was being managed and controlled as per the instructions of District Collector”.
But advocate Gogda alleged that the agency failed to show any money trail between the Rs 67.50 lakh recovered from Mori’s residence and Patel and “hence the arrest is illegal”.
Additionally, the agency alleged that Patel had not declared his agricultural income in his Income Tax returns, despite owning agricultural land according to his Immovable Property Returns (IPRs) submitted on the government portal for the period 2016 to date.
The ED further alleged that Patel was unable to explain the source of several high-end mobile phones recovered from his residence.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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