Andhra CM owns disputed land in Bangalore

Documents in the possession of Deccan Herald indicate that even newly-elected chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Kiran Kumar Reddy sits on a portion of litigated land in K R Puram, Bangalore East Taluk.

According to the documents, Kiran Reddy owns a portion of the five acres and 26 guntas in survey number 47 in Kodigehalli village, that is embroiled in  controversy.

Interestingly, he had bought the land through his associate, Karnataka BJP MLA Nandish Reddy, an indication of the interestingly close association of top Congressmen in Andhra with Karnataka BJP MLAs/MLCs.

Reddy’s predecessor, former Andhra chief minister Y S Rajashekar Reddy was known for his association with the Gali Reddy brothers of BJP.

The controversy with the K R Puram land Reddy has bought is that it is part of the grant given to Hanumappa of Kodigehalli village by the Karnataka Governenment in 1983 with a lock-in non-alienation within a period of 15 years. Hanumappa’s son H Venkatesha is now fighting for the land claiming that the transactions taking the land away from him are all illegal.

Invalid transaction

While the year 2000 in which Reddy bought the land is post the lock-in period, Venkatesha claims that purchase of the land by Vijayalakshmi, who in turn sold the land to Reddy and Boddapati Anand of Andhra was within the lock-in period making it an invalid transaction.

Vijayalakshmi had bought the land from H T Narayana Reddy in 1995, three years before the lock-in period prescribed by the government. Narayana Reddy, former chairman of Hoody Village Panchayat, had got the sale deed from Venkatesha’s family as early as in 1991.

A perusal of the transactions that saw the land changing several hands before a part of it was acquired by Kiran Kumar Reddy, shows that Venkatesha’s family had given a sale deed to Narayana Reddy in 1991 in clear violation of the rule. On October, 1, 1991, Venkatesha’s family first gave a sale deed to H T Narayana Reddy, who then sold the land to Vijayalakshmi on November, 25 , 1995 and Vijayalakshmi sold the land in favour of Boddapati Anand and Kiran Kumar Reddy.

However, Venkatesha justifies that the sale deed given to Narayana Reddy was not an out-and-out sale deed and that it was given as a guarantee to the money his family had borrowed from Narayana Reddy. He adds that his family had not even delivered the possession of the land to Reddy and also that they were giving the harvest from this land to Reddy, as part of the interest.

Thereby, the family argues that Narayana Reddy selling the land to Vijayalakshmi is in violation of the rules thereby demolishing the validity of all the other transactions that followed. Arguing in this line, the family is now demanding that the land be returned to them.

However, on the contrary the current owners of the land argue that once Venkatesha’s family gave the sale deed to Narayana Reddy, the property was sold and that the transactions stand.