Two Kovai Corporation staff under DVAC radar for swindling residents' house tax money

The accused were identified as R Yuvaraj, Record Clerk and Bill Collector (Full Additional Charge),East Zone, Coimbatore Corporation, now under suspension and R Sathya Prabha, Assistant Revenue Officer, East Zone, now at South Zone, Coimbatore Corporation.

The Coimbatore Municipal Corporation comprises 5 zones and 100 wards and the the East Zone alone consists of 20 wards. At the time of fixation of house tax to the newly constructed house / building, the building owner has to submit an application to the Municipal Corporation with relevant documents. The application would be received by the Assistant Revenue Officer (ARO) and entered in the relevant registers.

Subsequently, the application would be sent to the concerned bill collector for measuring the buildings and submitting the inspection report. During the measurement of buildings, if measurement exceeds the approved building plan, it would be considered as a deviation of buildings plan approval.

Thereafter, the Bill Collector will fix the charges for the deviation. The building owner shall remit the said amount to the Zonal Office concerned.

During the tenure of bill collector in charge of East Zone, Yuvaraj colluded with accused Sathya Prabha and prepared false challan, false seal in the name of Coimbatore Municipal Corporation. Using the same, Yuvaraj collected money from the building owners and maliciously issued the cash receipts number with forged signature of the cashier in order to make them believe that the deviation charges are paid to the treasury.

The two together had allegedly swindled Rs 7.57 lakh and DVAC has registered a case against them under the Prevention of Corruption Act and other IPC Sections.