BANGALORE: The family of former IPS officer H T Sangliana grabbed agricultural land with the help of forged documents, former MLA A T Ramaswamy alleged on Saturday.
Ramaswamy, who headed a legislature-appointed committee that surveyed Bangalore and identified encroachments, on Saturday released documents relating to the alleged land grab. Sangliana became famous as Bangalore police commissioner, and two Kannada feature films were made about his acts of heroism. He was later elected MP from Bangalore North.
The documents presented by Ramaswamy relate to six acres in Survey No 22, at Gadenahalli near Devanahalli, allotted in the name of Sangliana’s family. The allotments were earlier classified as gomal (grazing) land. Sangliana’s wife, daughter and son-in-law were allotted agricultural land, when they are not entitled to it, he said. The three members of Sangliana’s family have allegedly been given two acres each.
The documents, deliberately smudged, do not indicate the addresses and the names of the allottees clearly, Ramaswamy said.
The checklist in the Revenue Department also indicates documents pertaining to the allotments are not available, which raises further suspicion, he said.
The land was sanctioned in 1979-80, and a court stay is in place, according to the papers. This is again misleading as the stay does not pertain to land ownership by the Sangliana family, Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy is a member of an activist group led by freedom fighter H S Doreswamy, crusading against influential people grabbing government land in and around Bangalore.
‘DKS Complicit in Housing Scam’
Ramaswamy also accused Power Minister D K Shivakumar of being involved in a housing society scam in 2003. Shivakumar was co-operation minister then.
Shanthinagar House Building Co-operative Society was allotted 66 acres and 22 guntas at Begur Hobli in Bangalore South taluk in 1984.
Later, a bogus society of the same name claimed the land, and got it. This society operated for years under a fake registration number.
In 2004, it formed 156 sites, of which 143 were given to members of one family. Later the GVK Rau Committee recommended action against it. The committee said the society had failed to provide any proper registration documentation. The government should order a probe into Shivakumar’s role, Ramaswamy said.
Shivakumar denied the charge. “Why didn’t the H D Kumaraswamy government take action? The Ramaswamy committee was constituted with the sole motive of framing me,” he told Express. “These are politically motivated charges with no basis.”