
BENGALURU: After the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) attached 142 immovable properties worth Rs 300 crore on Friday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the MUDA case against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and others, all eyes are now on the Lokayukta report on the alleged MUDA site allotment scam.
The Karnataka High Court has directed the Lokayukta Police, probing the alleged scam in which Siddaramaiah and his wife BM Parvathi are accused No 1 and accused No 2, to submit its report by January 27. Siddaramaiah was booked under Sections 9 (bribing public servant by a commercial organisation) and 13 (criminal misconduct by a public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Prohibition of Benami Transaction and Land Grabbing Acts.
Under the PC Act, the Lokayukta Police are investigating whether there was any criminal intent (mens rea) behind the allotment of premium sites worth around Rs 56 crore to Parvathi at Vijayanagar, an upscale locality in Mysuru, in 2022 for 3.16 acres of land acquired from her by MUDA at Kesare village in Mysuru, which was worth around Rs 3.25 lakh.
“Under the PC Act, the Lokayukta Police are probing whether there was any conspiracy to wield influence (by the accused) to get the premium sites allotted and whether they were the recipients of any illegal gratification,” said sources. The ED, which has launched an investigation into the alleged scam based on the FIR registered by the Lokayukta Police, unearthed several violations, including alleged benami and other illegal transactions. During the investigation, it was found that 3.16 acres of land was reportedly denotified and converted illegally.
The land parcel was allegedly transferred to Siddaramaiah’s brother-in-law Mallikarjun Swamy in 2005 and he reportedly gifted it to Parvathi in 2010. Since the land was acquired by MUDA to develop a layout, Parvathi was allotted sites in Vijayanagar with higher circle rates in violation of norms.
Swamy and land owner Devaraju have been named as the third and fourth accused in the FIR, which was registered on September 27, 2024, by the Lokayukta SP, Mysuru, on the direction of the special court for elected representatives in Bengaluru, which took cognisance of a complaint filed by RTI activist Snehmayi Krishna.
The latter has named Siddaramaiah as the prime accused and his wife as the second accused. Siddaramaiah has repeatedly claimed that the land was transferred to his wife in accordance with law and that the BJP government was in power in 2021 when the plots in Vijayanagar were allotted to her.
The case also relates to alleged violations by MUDA in which many people were illegally allotted alternative sites than they were entitled to in lieu of their land acquired under a 50:50 scheme, which was introduced in November 2020 and scrapped by Siddaramaiah in 2023. Under the scheme, land losers were entitled to 50% of the developed sites, while the other half was retained by MUDA.
DKS says ED move nothing but political vendetta
A day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) provisionally attached 142 immovable properties worth Rs 300 crore in connection with the MUDA case against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday termed it as “political vendetta”.
Siddaramaiah and his family members have no role in the alleged MUDA scam and they have been needlessly drawn into the issue, he told reporters after reviewing preparations for the unveiling of a Mahatma Gandhi statue at Suvarna Vidhana Soudha. He said the ED investigation into the MUDA case is a tedious and long process. “The court has to take up the trial. I have faced cases of ED almost every day. I will not comment much on the MUDA issue,’’ he added.