BENGALURU: The Chief Minister’s Secretariat on Thursday issued a statement clarifying that no land has been denotified by the present government. This comes a day after B S Yeddyurappa’s counsel told the High Court that the present government had denotified 1,300 acres of land in Dr K Shivaram Karanth Layout. The official statement categorically stated that no land has been denotified by the present government in the layout.
According to the statement, 3,546 acres were notified in 2008 for the formation of the layout. Between 2008 and 2010, the previous government gave directions to Bengaluru Development Authority to exclude 257.20 acres of land from the proposed acquisition. Further, during 2012-2014 the Land Acquisition Officers of BDA excluded 446.07 acres of land from acquisition on the basis of parameters given in Supreme Court and High Court orders with regard to the Arkavathy Layout case.
The statement also said that the land acquisition for Dr K Shivaram Karanth Layout has been challenged before the High Court. The High Court issued an order on 02-09-2015, stating that the scheme for formation of the layout lapsed on the ground that the state government and BDA did not complete the land acquisition process within five years from the date of preliminary notification.
“An appeal was filed against this judgment during the tenure of the present government in November, 2016 and the appeal was dismissed on April 28, 2017 on the grounds as held in the Single Bench Judgment. A Special Leave Petition is being filed by the BDA against this order in the Supreme Court,” the statement said.
“The BDA has issued endorsements to land owners regarding the lands excluded by the SLAOs by applying the criteria laid down by the Supreme Court / High Court orders. The BDA has also issued endorsements to the land owners informing them of the September 2, 2015 order of the High Court stating that the entire land acquisition has lapsed. These endorsements are issued at the level of BDA and the government has no role in this, Therefore, the allegations that the government has denotified 1,300 acres of land is false, baseless and devoid of any evidence or records,” the CM’s Secretariat clarified.