BMTF books cheating case against Nice top brass

The Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) has registered a case of cheating and criminal breach of trust against 12 top executives of the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (Nice) including its managing director Ashok Kheny, chairman N Vaghul and vice president Manjunath Nayakar.

The BMTF has registered a case based on a complaint by Kempegowda, a resident of Gavipuram Guttahalli in Bangalore. The Nice top brass has been accused of unnecessarily acquiring more than 3,000 acres of land, illegally forming layouts without seeking permission from the competent authority, selling sites to individuals and constructing apartments on the said land.

The complaint says that some Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Planning Authority (BMICPA) officials had connived with the Nice. The BMTF has kept the options open to register cases against the BBMP and BMICPA officials if they are found guilty during the investigation.

The other top officials of Nice named in the FIR are its directors Babasaheb Kalyani, Sanjivi Sundar, Shivakumar Kheny, John C Hayward, B R V Goud, Siddharth Kheny and vice presidents Ravishankar, Rudrana Gowda and T Mahadev.

Kempegowda said in his complaint that the Mysore-Bangalore Infrastructure Corridor project was approved by the Cabinet based on the Infrastructure Corridor Project Technical Report (ICPTR) prepared during August 1995. The ICPTR contains all the details of the project. The Frame Work Agreement (FWA) between the Nice and the state government showed that the total land required for the project was 20,193 acres. But, all of a sudden on July 31, 1997, a note was prepared at Chief Secretary's office, which was circulated to certain state officials connected with the project, showing that 23,846 acres was required for the project.