Central team begins probe into Dinakaran ‘encroachment’

A three-member central team comprising National Spatial Data Infrastructure CEO R Sivakumar, Lucknow Survey of India director Sanjay Kumar and additional surveyor-general M Dharmarajan, also director of Chennai Survey of India, held a meeting with Thiruvallur district collector V Palanikumar on Wednesday regarding the alleged land encroachment by Karnataka chief justice PD Dinakaran at Kaverirajapuram in Tiruttani taluk. The team also separately met KM Vinodhini, Dinakaran’s wife, to hear his side of the story.

“We met to assess the quantum of work we have to undertake to map the alleged encroached land. We collected documents from the district collector and Dinakaran’s representative [Vinodhini]. We will use GPS and other contemporary technologies to map the area,” Sivakumar said.

“It will take at least a month for us to compile a report. We will go to Kaverirajapuram at a later date to get first-hand information from villagers. Our mapping will be a support tool for the authorities concerned to take a decision,” he said.

Asked if the impeachment proceedings initiated by some members of Rajya Sabha would affect his team’s objective, Sivakumar said, “We have been mandated to map the area. If we are asked to stop work, we will immediately do so.”

Dinakaran, whose elevation to the Supreme Court has been put on hold following allegations of corruption and land encroachment, has been accused of usurping land abandoned people who haven’t paid taxes regularly to the government or cultivated. The land is adjacent to 362.8 acres of mango plantations the judge and his family own in Kaverirajapuram.