By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : A court here Thursday directed the police to register a case against the Thiruvananthapuram district collector and three others in an alleged land scam, involving the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Additional chief judicial magistrate S. Gopalakrishnan asked the police to register a case against Thiruvananthapuram District Collector N. Ayappan, two top officials of the ISRO and local businessman Savy Mano Mathew, who allegedly sold the land illegally to ISRO in March this year.
A vigilance case has also been registered with regards to the scam.
ISRO had purchased 82 acres of land at the Ponmudi hills, 70 km from here, from Mathew to build a space research institute.
Opposition parties in the state have alleged that the land belongs to the state government’s forest department and Mathew sold it illegally in connivance with Forest Minister Binoy Viswom.
Following the outbreak of the controversy, the state government earlier this month cancelled the deal between ISRO and Mathew and offered to give ISRO an alternative site for free.
The state government Wednesday appointed a team of bureaucrats to see that all steps are taken to give a new plot of 100 acres to ISRO at Ponmudi.
The Kerala High Court is also hearing a clutch of petitions, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the dubious land deal.