Maytas still selling land

Maytas Infra, Maytas Properties and their subsidiaries are still completing transactions with the government looking the other way. Nine transactions were registered on Thursday, and at least 30 properties have been sold in a month.

Sources in the revenue department said that the higher ups in the government had given the green signal for registrations of the land deals even after the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, the Sebi, the company affairs ministry and income tax departments issued prohibitory orders.

After the arrest of Mr Gopala Krishnam Raju , the person in-charge of land dealings of Maytas, Mr Kanumuri V.V. Krishnam Raju , has taken over his post. He, along with Mr M. Teja Pratap Raju, representative of Maytas Properties, has been registering the lands to private parties.

This newspaper has found out several registrations that were conducted even after the ban was imposed. On January 27, Mr Krishnam Raju and Mr Teja Pratap Raju registered a property to Mr Muunooori Srinivasa Raju at Kutbullapur sub-registrar office with file no. 00482/2009 and documents numbering P 449144.

As per the documents, Mr Krishnam Raju represents Swarnamuki Greenfields and Mr Teja Pratap Raju Maytas Properties.

The concerned property at Medchal Mandal was owned by Maytas Properties along with 13 other front companies including Swarnamuki, Himagiri, Sindhu , Goman, Nagavali, Vindya, Swarnagiri, Konar, Warda, Medravati, Yamuna, Vamsadara and Uttarashada agro and Greenfield. Though Mr Krishnam Raju and Mr Teja Pratap Raju were present, nobody else attended on behalf of the remaining 12 firms. The modus operandi was simple. Certain persons gave representations to the commissioner of registrations complaining that they had paid money to Maytas Properties and had entered into agreements, but the registrations were stalled because of the ban.

On February 5, Mr V.S.N. Raju made a representation for registration followed by another representation by Mr R.V.V. Prasada Raju. There were many other representations, some of them thought to be fictitious.

Following this, registrations were undertaken on February 5,10,12,17 and 18. “Yesterday (Thursday_ there were nine transactions and Mr Krishnam Raju attended all of them,” said a revenue official. “This month he completed 25-30 transactions.”

The sub-registrar wrote a letter to the commissioner on February 4 asking for further clarification on the transactions of Maytas. Surprisingly, after this letter was written, transactions resumed again.