BENGALURU: Observing that the State’s largesse or the precious lands of the State can neither be allowed to be frittered away in the garb of respect to the freedom fighter, nor it can be allowed to be surreptitiously parted in favour of the private parties for extraneous considerations, the Karnataka High Court on Friday gave green signal to the Lokayukta enquiry ordered by the State Government to look into the grant of four acre alternative land in the heart of the city to self -acclaimed freedom fighter Suryanarayana Rao’s son S Sundaresh.
Refusing to interfere in the government’s action, Justice Dr Vineet Kothari disposed off the petition filed by S Sundaresh (58) from JP Nagar in city. He had challenged the Lokayukta probe ordered by the Revenue Department on April 15, 2017 to conduct probe into the grant of four acre alternative land in Survey No.129 of Srigandhada Kaval, Yeshwanthpur hobli in Bengaluru North taluk.
“Whether a freedom fighter in the true sense of the term would have fought for this kind of privilege or grant of entitlement to such an extent is another shade to consider. In fact, whether upon payment of Rs 6 crore by Sundaresh, the price of said four acre land in 2013, it remains a free grant of land to a freedom fighter or a case of sale of land by State under the guise of a grant to a freedom fighter? Whether there was any misrepresentation or fraud played by the parties in the case or any collusion with members of the Bureaucracy or Executive and even political patronage are the questions which may be required to be looked into by the State or Lokayukta,” Justice Kothari said.The court hopes that a dispassionate, fair, genuine and an expeditious enquiry shall be held and concluded soon, the judge noted.
HC disposes of PIL on Bengaluru-Karwar train
Bengaluru: The High Court disposed off a PIL by directing the petitioners to submit representation to the Indian Railway Board requesting to run exclusive Bengaluru-Karwar night train directly via Kunigal line which was commissioned recently. A division bench of acting Chief Justice H G Ramesh and Justice P S Dinesh Kumar directed the petitioner Sanjay Revankar of Kadwad village in Karwar taluk of Uttara Kannada district to submit the representation by four weeks to Railway Board which in turn was asked to pass the orders on it in four months. During hearing, petitioner’s advocate Raveendra G Kolle argued that more than four hours of precious time of passengers can be saved if the independent train is run through Kunigal line without entering Mangaluru city.