Thrissur: Thrissur Vigilance Court on Monday has sought the report of the district administration giving a clean chit to film star Dileep in a land grab complaint. The court had earlier ordered the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) to register an FIR in the petition filed by Thrissur-based activist P. D. Joseph accusing his D-Cinemaas multiplex in Chalakudy of grabbing the land belonging to a Thampuran Kovilakam of Kochi Royal Family.
But the VACB registered an FIR without arraigning the star and former Thrissur collector M. S. Jaya saying it needed more investigation. But last week, collector A. Kowsigan approved a report prepared by the land records tahsildar rejecting the complaint of K. C. Santosh of Aluva, the star's estranged friend. Mr Kowsigan signed the report after he got the transfer order as the MD of Kerala Water Authority and Mr Joseph filed another complaint against the collector as a VACB was going on.
Ayub Khan, the lawyer of Mr Santhosh, alleged that the hearing on his client’s petition was completed in September and the collector while leaving Thrissur approved the report in haste. “The district administration is silent on from whom and how the actor bought the land as plots of 10 cents and the history of such land transactions with forged deeds," he told DC. VACB DySP in Thrissur had earlier said that how the land of the royal family reached private hands after it became part of Kerala state need to be probed. “The land, if not used by the royal family, will rest with the government. During the highway development on the contentious land in 2003-04, no private person had got any compensation claiming ownership of the land," the VACB DySP had said earlier.
