The Revenue Department has done it again. A prime forest land abutting the Bannerghatta National ark (BNP) has now been divided into many pieces and given away by a special deputy commissioner. In all, 58 acres of land have been distributed among 12 individuals. The illegal distribution of land at the Bhootanahalli Minor Forest came to light when the grant beneficiaries tried to build structures in the forest area. The documents, which are available with Deccan Chronicle, expose the illegal grants made by revenue department Special DC, Bengaluru East Taluk, C. Mohammad Khalimulla, two months ago. In the grant letter, issued on July 8, 2012, the special DC admits that Survey No 67 of Bhootanahalli is a forest land and there are no problems in granting it to the beneficiaries.
The Bhootanahalli forest, spread across 539.27 acres, was declared a Minor Forest by the Mysore government on March 17, 1934. The land has been under the control of forest department since then. The status of land will remain the same unless there is a denotification under Section 28 of Karnataka Forest Act, 1963. There are no such denotification orders, and forest department is angry with the revenue department for committing the blunder. A senior forest officer said the Special DC is taking advantage of last leg of his tenure as he is retiring next month and made illegal grants. He has also ignored repeated requests from the forest department to hand over the grant details.
“It’s a criminal offence to grant any forest land without consulting the central government. After the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, the courts have made the central government approval mandatory for diverting forest land for any other use. We will approach the Chief Conservator of Forests, appointed by the Central Government, and issue a notice to the Special DC. We have records to prove that the granted land is part of the Minor Forest and we will soon expel grant holders from the forest area,” said a forest officer from the Bengaluru Urban Division.
This piece of land has been preyed upon by land sharks for long as the land prices around Bannerghatta Road have shot up over the last few years. The revenue department had misled the buyers about the status of land earlier too. A developer had encroached on the land and formed Athithi Layout. But the forest department officials intervened on time and evicted the encroacher.