KURNOOL: The Revenue Divisional Officer, Divisional Forest Officer, two engineers face criminal charges in the Padmaraju tank land acquisition case near Atmakur.

Besides lodging a criminal complaint against the four officers whose `action' in 1990 complicated the issue now, the district administration filed a suit in the district court here urging it to stop release of the award to the claimant as the fraud had been detected now.

The district court here will take up the case on December 13, which would be the first instance of the Revenue Department going to court against its own award passed in the past. Irregularity was cited the reason for intervention now. The administration placed before the court the vigilance report, which detected irregularities in identification of plants and taking over the land.

400 acres acquired

Padmaraju tank land issue has turned out to be a classic example of the land acquisition burden in the recent times. An extent of 400 acres was acquired for building a tank to provide irrigation to 600 acres at a cost of Rs. 1.6 crores. The tank needed very little water stocking area but most of the land was acquired to accommodate backwaters.

Now, a single landowner who offered 9.64 acres is going to lap up a whopping Rs. 1.13 crores. He received Rs. 46 lakhs so far and an amount of Rs. 67 lakhs was deposited with the Senior Civil Judge court at Atmakur for release if the judiciary clears the claim.

Price for plants

The farmer claimed only Rs. 10,000 per acre towards cost of the land but he was going to receive a price of Rs. 122.60 for each of 26,992 eucalyptus plants. Issues relating to land acquisition were scrutinised by the courts right from Senior Civil Judge court to the Supreme Court. Several cases were pending before the High Court, District Court and Civil Judge court.

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