BENGALURU:After a messy litigation battle, the Bangalore Development Authority’s (BDA’s) housing project at Nagarbhavi, proposed in 2015, is finally set to take shape. This is in light of a High Court verdict delivered in its favour on April 27.
The Rs 50-crore project targets constructing 120 3BHK houses in Nagarbhavi village (Survey no. 103). While giving the green signal to the BDA to proceed with it, Justice B V Nagarathna in a 246-page judgement dismissed the case against BDA and ordered the petitioners to pay a fine of Rs 25,000 each to the court.
BDA Superintending Engineer N G Gowdaiah told The New Indian Express, “This is a landmark judgment in terms of land acquisition for us.” The verdict would also offer relief to 30-plus allottees given 30x40 sq ft sites by the ‘All Community Housing Co-operative Society’, whose land was also blocked due to litigation.BDA has not yet made any allotment of houses at Nagarbhavi and will do it after the construction work progresses to some extent, Gowdaiah said.
The issue dates back to 1982 when BDA acquired nearly 1,000 acres for the development of Chandra Layout, Nagarbhavi Ist and IInd Stage. The preliminary notification was issued in 1982, the final notification in 1985 and the award (compensation) was given to landowners in 2002, he explained. The possession of land was taken in 2002 by the BDA.
Of the land acquired, 4 acres and 30 guntas belonged to one Muniveerappa, who objected to BDA taking over his property. BDA, meanwhile, handed over 1 acre and 30 guntas to the All Community Housing Co-operative Society and earmarked 1 acre and 16 guntas for its Ring Road project.
Muniveerappa sold 2 acres to one Chanarayappa and kept the remainder with himself. He died in 1997 but his sons Muniramaiah and Gangadhar challenged the BDA acquisition in the Supreme Court, which did not admit the case. “BDA later planned the Housing Project in October 2015,” he said.
However, in 2017, the sons managed to get a stay in the High Court against the Housing Project. “Last Friday, the High Court dismissed four cases against the project and permitted BDA to go ahead with the construction of the Housing Project. We have now begun work here,” the Engineer added.