Telangana IAS officer appears before ED for second day in land dispute case

Hyderabad, Oct 24 : Senior Telangana IAS officer D. Amoy Kumar appeared before the Enforcement Directorate for a second day on Thursday in connection with a case relating to a land dispute.

Amoy Kumar, who is currently the Secretary, Animal Husbandry, was grilled for eight hours on Wednesday. The agency officials were questioning him again on Thursday in connection with a land dispute which took place when he was the Collector of Rangareddy district. The ED officials are likely to complete the recording of his statement on Thursday.

The agency took up the investigation based on the First Information Report (FIR) filed by Maheswaram police in Rangareddy district. Though the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer is not named as an accused in the case, the ED summoned him as a witness. The agency may also look into his role in the case.

In March last year, Dastagir Shareef had filed a private complaint in a court that some individuals, with the alleged collusion of revenue officials, fraudulently obtained succession rights, mutated revenue records, and issued illegal passbooks for 42.33 acres of land in Nagaram village in Maheswaram mandal. On the court’s direction, the police registered FIR and took up an investigation. Several individuals including Mandal Revenue Officer R.P. Jyothi were named in the FIR.

Shareef claimed that he and Muzaffer Hussain Khan purchased the land from Mohammed Akber Ali Khan and Mohammed Farooq Ali Khan, who inherited the land through an oral gift from their father Nawab Haji Khan. The land, worth several crores, was illegally transferred to some individuals. The ED is probing the money laundering angle in the land dispute case. Amoy Kumar was also reportedly questioned about land allotments when he was the Collector of Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri districts. The agency is said to be focussing on lands allotted to private persons and businessmen. There have been allegations that irregularities were committed to change the land records under the Dharani system brought by the previous BRS government.