BENGALURU: A senior official of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has unearthed a scam concerning registration of three corner sites in Sir M Visvesvaraiah Layout. The scam had happened a year ago but was detected last week. The BDA has filed three FIRs in connection with the scam in the Seshadripuram police station with three of its staffers being charged.
The BDA has auctioned its corner sites in seven rounds. The corner sites are big revenue grossers for it. This specific case pertains to the auctioning of sites in the Layout’s 8th Block which took place before May 2021. In a case of malpractice only possible with the involvement of individuals inside the office, three 7th Block sites unlisted in the auction have been registered in the names of three individuals.
“Forged documents, bank challans and other details have been presented and the registration too has been completed,” said a top official. When pursuing the files of registered sites, Deputy Secretary Geetha Hudeda detected the scam and alerted officials. “What has been detected is just a tip of the iceberg. The minimum loss we could have incurred if the sites had gone undetected is Rs 3 crore. The same could have been done with countless sites and flats allotted or auctioned so far by the Authority,” said the official.
The three FIRs filed on January 12, 2022 list G Srinivas, K Manju Naik and T Ramesh Babu as prime accused. Three BDA staffers figure as the second accused, while mediators and others have been listed as third accused. They have been booked for forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy under the IPC under the following sections 149, 465, 466, 468, 471, 472, 473, 409, 420 and 120 B.
A senior BDA official said the registration of the sites will be nullified and their possession taken back. There needs to be a complete audit done of all the 3 lakh sites and flats allotted or auctioned since the inception of the BDA to unearth the hold of the land mafia, he added. “An audit done by a State level committee or former CAG members or even a private CA team would really bring out many more skeletons out of the cupboard. Some decision on these lines need to be taken by the government,” he said.