HDK, ex-minister charged
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The Lokayukta police have chargesheeted former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and former minister C. Chennigappa and two others for allegedly illegally denotifying land in Arkavathy Layout. The police filed a 1,200-page report and 52-page chargesheet before the Lokayukta special court on Monday. Special court judge N.K. Sudhindra Rao posted the next hearing in the case to April 21.
The chargesheet stated that on the recommendation of Mr Chennigappa, then Chief Minister Kumaraswamy cleared denotification orders in favour of two original owners, despite adverse reports in 2007. This had not only caused a huge loss to the state exchequer, but also denied sites to 44 allottees. The complainant, M.S. Mahadevaswamy, alleged that Mr Kumaraswamy denotified survey number 87/4 (b) at Thanisandra in October 2007, which was under acquisition for Arkavathy Layout.
The complaint stated that 57 sites were carved out in the survey number by the BDA and 44 sites were already allotted to people. The police have stated that charges under section 182, 420, 120 (b) of IPC and other sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act have been proved against the accused. The investigating officer, Police Inspector Ravishankar, has also sought to prosecute Principal Secretary Jyothi Ramalingam for hiding facts.
The Lokayukta investigation stated that the two owners of the land in survey number 87/4 (b) (measuring 3.8 acres) in Thanisandra, Ravi Prakash, an ENT specialist, and Sri Ram, an assistant professor at UVC College, had objected to the acquisition of their land during the preliminary notification. Their plea, that they were poor and had no other source of income, was set aside by the BDA and final notification was issued and the land was acquired.
The Lokayukta police probe found that these two owners had commercial and residential buildings elsewhere in the city, including in Jayanagar and BTM Layout. One of the original owners also possessed 10.5 acres of land in the nearby area. After the acquisition, the BDA carved out 57 sites on the same land, and allotted 44 of these sites to various people. One Mr Madhavan Nair also constructed a house on site number 2. Both the original owners approached then minister Mr Chennigappa requesting that the land be denotified.
Mr Chennigappa wrote a recommendation letter to Mr Kumaraswamy, who sought details from the BDA. The Urban Development Department submitted to the CM that the matter should be placed before the denotification committee. However, Mr Ramalingam forwarded the file to Mr Kumaraswamy and the order was passed to denotify the land in October 2007. While the BDA did not allot alternative sites to the 44 allottees, the original owners sold 2.6 acres of prime land to developers for commercial purpose.
The police have listed Mr Kumaraswamy as accused number 1, Mr Chennigappa as accused number 2 and land owners Ravi Prakash and Sriram as the other accused. Mr Kumaraswamy is also an accused in another case being investigated by the Lokayukta police.
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