In 2007, Narayana Swamy inquired into an alleged illegal land deal by the son and daughter of the then Kerala Public Works minister T. U. Kuruvilla, who was forced to resign following an investigation. Kuruvilla's children had taken ₹65 million from an NRI businessman promising to sell him some prime land, soon suspected to be encroached. The sale did not happen and the businessman went public while Kuruvilla maintained everything was above board. Narayana Swamy, the then Idukki District Collector, probed the land the Minister's children were to sell and reported that a good part of the land they surveyed was government land, some suspectedly benami. Kuruvilla could only agree to quit. It was the first time in the history of the country that a minister had to resign on the report of an IAS officer.