MANGALURU: In what could be for sure an embarrassment for Mangaluru South MLA D Vedavyas Kamath, a building housing the Sevanjali Charitable Trust has allegedly not procured mandatory licence required to erect structure from the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC). Kamath is chairman of this trust.
The MCC in its response (copy available with TNIE) to an RTI query said that it has not given licence to a particular survey number where the building was erected. An activist, M Varadaraya Prabhu had asked the MCC to provide a copy of licence issued by the corporation to the owners of the building who built the structure on survey number 193/1. It's the same building where the trust is functioning. The MCC now has issued two notices to the owners of the building seeking an explanation.
The land where this structure had come is owned by Niveditha Gokulnath Prabhu and Gokulnath Prabhu. Niveditha is elder sister of Naresh Shenoy, a close friend of Vedavyas Kamath and one of the office bearers of the trust. Naresh is also accused in the murder of RTI activist Vinayak Baliga case. The building is built at Jodmutt Street in Mangaluru.
Originally the land measuring 6.58 cents bearing 193/1 survey number was with Matti Srinivas Prabhu and he passed on the land to his son M Varadaraj Prabhu executing deed of settlement. The deed was executed on August 19, 2006. The land has three old twin houses bearing door numbers 11-2-34, 11-2-35 and 11-2-36. Later the same was sold making sale deed to Niveditha Gokulnath Prabhu and Gokulnath Prabhu and it was done on September 2, 2006. However, during sale the door numbers were not subject to the matter of sale, according to the deeds accessed by the TNIE.
In 2008, the MCC transferred the door numbers of these old twin houses to names of Niveditha Gokulnath Prabhu and Gokulnath Prabhu. Moreover, these owners, who are also close associates of Vedavyas Kamath, built a new building and allegedly falsely attributed the door number of an old house to the newly constructed building and did not obtain fresh door number from the corporation.
And this was found in the application filed to draw electricity from MESCOM. Hanumanth Kamath, worker in the Charitable Trust signed as witness in the application, filed by owners to seek power supply to new building by providing the door number as 11-2-36. The application was filed on September 1, 2010. However, this is an old door number of an old house.
The MCC says it has not given any licence to this building in its RTI response on Feb 2, 2019. On the complaint of M Varadaraya Prabhu, now MCC has issued two notices seeking explanation from the owners. The notices are issued on 26-6-2019 and 4-10-2019.
Vedavyas Kamat said this has not come to his notice and he will check the same. Hanumanth Kamath said "the building is 100 year old and we have all the documents. The owners have responded to the notices."