BENGALURU: In a new twist to the denotification scam, a KAS officer has claimed that Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) police tried to armtwist him into implicating former Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa.
In a letter to Chief Secretary Subhash Chandra Khuntia, H Basavarajendra, Deputy Secretary, Mines Investigation Cell and Sugar, said he was told to fix the BJP state president or be prepared to be named as an accused himself.
Basavarajendra alleged that he was called by DySP Balaraj of the Anti-corruption Bureau to answer a few questions about acquisition of land for Shivarama Karanth Layout.
Basavarajendra says he was Special Land Acquisition Officer (SLAO) at BDA from July 12, 2010 to September 11, 2011 and he had issued endorsements issued by Bengaluru Development Authority regarding acquisition of land.
The officer stated that he visited ACB a couple of times in the second week of August.
On August 10, he says he was called again to meet DySPs Balraj and Anthony John J K.
“After discussing for about half an hour, DySP Balaraj started dictating a statement to be issued by me that the alleged denotification was done by the then Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and that he had passed illegal orders of denotification and caused loss of `2,000 crore to the government and consequential gain to himself,” Basavarajendra wrote.
Basavarajendra said he intervened, saying he knew nothing about it and had discharged duties assigned to him as SLAO under the guidance of the Deputy Commissioner of Land Acquisition who in turn had orders from the state government.