Thirty-five civil servants from Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, were punished for manipulating random lottery results in exchange for purchasing choice apartments.

Eight of them were deposed while the rest were slapped demerits. Six were reassigned, news website people.cn reported Saturday, citing investigators.

Seven suspects from a real estate company that owns the apartments and a technology company that ran the random lottery for buyer qualification were detained on suspicion of manipulating the computer system, people.cn reported.

The Tianlei real estate company was ordered to re-conduct the lottery for 106 apartments involved in the under-the-table-deals between the company and 116 people, including 35 civil servants and 10 that gave up the qualification.

The purchasers who violated the sales rules were banned from participating in the resale, the announcement said.

The Chang'an district, Xi'an city government formed an investigation team after an information registration form of purchasers for a condominium in Xi'an circulated online on May 24.

The form showed that some apartments had been allocated to several management-level civil servants of the local government, cctv.com reported Tuesday.

The district's discipline inspection commission told cctv.com on Tuesday that some civil servants had manipulated the estate company and brought closely-related people to purchase apartments.

Xi'an had been experiencing a surge in real estate sales so that the city implemented the lottery system for purchasing apartments on March 30, cctv.com reported.