BANGALORE: A large extent of land notified for industrial purpose at Hebbagodi and Veerasandra villages near Electronic city was denotified on four occasions during SM Krishna and Dharam Singh period.
This was revealed while the Karnataka High Court was hearing the petition challenging the denotification of land at Hebbagodi and Veerasandra villages. The petitioner submitted the documents pertaining to the denotification of lands, the same, which was obtained through RTI.
The documents stated that about 224 acres, 33 gunta of land was notified by the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), however, after denotification of the land, only 43 acres and 10 guntas of land was retained for industrial purpose.
After examining the same, the court observed that, “The petition was a tell-tale story of mismanagement of statutory provisions and arbitrary exercise. The political leaders who run the state holding constitutional posts, such as the chief minister, ministers for industries and commerce and several other minister and former ministers and their relatives, have all played their role in the functioning of the statutory authorities under the KIADB Act.”
The documents revealed that of the total 224 acres, 33 guntas of land, the government denotified 138 acres, 8 guntas of land in May 14, 2007, in which 77 acres, 20 guntas of land was in Hebbagodi and 60 acres 28, guntas of land at Veerasandra village.
Interestingly, on the same day, the government again denotified about 86 acres and 19 guntas of land in both the villages. In August 30, 2007, the government once again denotified 89 acres and 24 guntas of land.
The documents, further revealed that the former working president of Congress D K Shivakumar was also one of the beneficiary. In survey number 80,84,85,87 and 89 at Veersandra and 121 of Hebbagodi Village, about 21 acres and 16 guntas of land was denotified in favour of DK Shivakumar, P Badarinath, P Mohan Murthy and P Krishnaiah Chetty and the then chief minister Dharam Singh, and the state’s industries minister PGR Sindhia recommended for the same.
In survey number 81/2, 2 acres, 36 guntas of land at Veerasandra was denotified in favour of one DT Shankar, and the then industries minister R V Deshpande had recommended for the denotification on February 6, 2004.
R V Deshpande recommended the denotification of a few acres of land in Veerasandra and Hebbagodi villages in favour of SV Shankar and MR Baldev.
The proceeding in the KIADB scam also revealed that former chief minister S M Krishna had also recommended for the denotification of lands in favour of a few persons. Later, Katta Subramanya
Naidu had also recommended for the denotification of land in favour of MP Rajagopala Reddy.
After going through this documents, Justice DV Shylendra Kumar observed that “The provision of the KIADB Act was being misused and abused in a most arbitrary and whimsical manner.”