Probe against HDK handed over to Lokayukta
Complaint against ex-forest minister, too
The New Year did not bode well for former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy as the Special Lokayukta Court on Monday, handed over the probe into a private complaint involving him and then forest minister C Chennigappa to the Lokayukta police.
The private complaint holds him responsible for illegally denotifying land that was acquired for the formation of Arkavathy Layout, on the recommendation of Chennigappa. The complaint lists Kumaraswamy, Chennigappa, Raviprakash A V and Shivram A V as the accused.
The complaint has been handed over to the Lokayukta police under Section 156 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code and a report is expected to be submitted on February 6.
M S Mahadevaswamy, the complainant and a social activist, says that the State government issued a notification in 2002-03 intending to acquire land for the formation of Arkavathy Layout.
Lands were acquired and preliminary notification on February 3, 2003 announced the acquisition of 3,339 acres and 12 guntas, while the final notification stated the acquisition was 2,750 acres.
The complainant further states that 3 acres and 8 guntas in Survey no 87/4B of Thanisandra village of K R Puram hobli of which Raviprakash and Shivram were the notified khatedars were also acquired, announced in the final notification and compensation was also paid to them.
Further the land was transferred to BDA, sites were formed, allotted and even sale was executed to several people who were allotted the sites.
But Chennigappa, in a letter on April 5, 2007, stated that Raviprakash and Shivram were known to him and about 15 families were dependent on the 3 acres and 12 guntas and they had no alternate piece of land.
Further they belonged to poor families and he recommended the denotification of land.
The complainant has alleged that contrary to Chennigappa’s statement, the BDA has no record of receiving a letter from Raviprakash and Shivram, asking for their land to be denotified.
Following the recommendation, the land was denotified by Kumaraswamy and a gazette notification was issued on October 3, 2007, without ever placing it in front of the denotification committee.
The complaint alleges abuse of official position by Kumaraswamy and Chennigappa and also alleges financial gains to the two in return for denotifying the land.
