Ravi’s body was found hanging. Ravi’s body was found hanging.

For an IAS officer who had been in service for merely five years D K Ravi, 36, gathered a large fan following as was evident from the massive crowd that turned up for his last rites at his home village Doddakoppalu in Karnataka’s Tumkur district.

Most of his following came from his image of being an upright officer willing to battle powerful lobbies in the interest of the common man. Ravi, son of a poor farmer, will however be best known for taking on Goliaths both during his tenure as the deputy commissioner of the backward, drought-affected Kolar district and over the last four months as additional commissioner for enforcement in the Commercial Tax Department of the Karnataka government.

IAS officer D K Ravi , who took on Mafia, found dead. Heart felt condolences 2 his family. Let’s pledge 2 continue his fight agnst corrption — Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) March 17, 2015

In Kolar, where people are poor, uneducated and fed up with a system that turns a blind eye to them, Ravi took revenue adalats to the villages rather than restricting them to the district headquarters. His battles with the land and sand mafia in the region where he refused to buckle under political pressure earned him public support but is also eventually believed to have lead to his transfer out of the district.

In one of the final battles he fought in Kolar, Ravi re-opened a case of alleged encroachment over 48 acres of government land in the Hanchala village near Kolar, against the Confident Group, a major Bangalore realty firm. The move reportedly earned the wrath of the local Congress legislator K M Narayanaswamy who was associated with the Confident Group. On Tuesday, following Ravi’s death, a resort belonging to the Confident Group located on controversial Kolar land was attacked by protesters.

In the four months since he was transferred to Bangalore, Ravi primarily set his eyes on big real estate players after he reportedly uncovered a widespread practice of suppressing a Service Tax of 14.5 per cent that was being collected from buyers of properties. Several top real estate firms like Nitish Estates, Mantri Developers, Elegant Properties, RMZ Properties, DS Max and Assetz were served notices and taxes to the tune of Rs 125 crore that had been defaulted were collected during Ravi’s tenure.

In February, the enforcement wing raided 67 offices of major jewellery firms Rajesh Exports Limited and Shubh Jewellers for alleged evasion of commercial taxes. The unit under D K Ravi also raided the head office of the Axis Bank in Bangalore and unearthed alleged tax evasion of about Rs 4 crore in gold transactions conducted by the bank between 2012-15.

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