BENGALURU: In all, 222 allottees of HRBR Layout heaved a collective sigh of relief as demolition orders against their sites, issued eight years ago, have finally been withdrawn. This follows orders issued by the deputy commissioner, Bengaluru Urban, in their favour on Saturday June 3.
It has virtually legalised their sites by stating that claimants to the property where the sites were formed had forged signatures and got consent on fabricated documents. It also called for the names of the claimants, Kunappa and Kuttappa, to be deleted from the revenue records.
The 222 residential and four CA sites in the Layout were formed by the BDA on the dried-up Channasandra tank in Banaswadi village in 1984-85. The Revenue Department, which owned all the lakes, never transferred the land to the BDA and this allowed encroachers to step in. Adding to their anxiety was a Karnataka High Court order on December 1, 2022 ruling in favour of the individuals who staked claim to the property.
Shyam Sundar, a houseowner, told TNIE, “We are all so relieved now. Nearly 150 families who had built their houses and were residing here received the shock of their lives when demolition orders were pasted outside their homes in January 2015 following an order by the tahsildar of Bengaluru East taluk. Residents have waged a bitter struggle since then to safeguard their legal properties.”
Another resident, Wing Commander (retd) Thomas Babu, said, “We have got justice finally. The DC took into consideration the Forensic Science Lab report which showed the signatures as fake. I had personally been fighting since 2000 when the duo started issuing notices to me ordering me to vacate. I had been filing cases spending so much money on lawyers and so much of my time.”
Resident Dwarkanath said, “The empty sites are full of snakes now. The BDA needs to put in place tree parks here so that it becomes public property and no one else can encroach them further.”
TNIE had in its report on December 22, 2022, highlighted the anxiety faced by 150 families who had been allotted sites three decades ago. Following the report, former Bengaluru development minister KJ George had raised the issue during the Assembly session in Belagavi on December 28 that year.