Surveyor faked khata to usurp bro-in-law's land, says RTI reply

While the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is blamed for delaying citizens’ services, it seems to have worked at unusual speed to issue a bogus khata for a property in Yelahanka hobli, reveals an RTI reply. The case relates to a dispute between siblings over the division of three acres and 15 guntas of land in survey numbers 83/1 and 83/2 of Byatarayanapura village in Yelahanka hobli.

Dr C Ramesh, a forensic expert at a charitable hospital, has locked horns with his sister Bhavani and her husband K M Narendra Kumar, a government surveyor.

Dr Ramesh alleges that a 30-ft road should bifurcate the property in two equal parts but his brother-in-law Narendra Kumar used his influence and meddled with the survey sketches in such a way that he and his wife benefited. Using his clout in his department, Kumar shifted the position of the road, resulting in Dr Ramesh losing almost 11,000 sq ft of land to the road.

When Dr Ramesh applied for the documents relating to the survey through RTI, he got a reply saying that no such documents were available. As a legal battle ensued, the Deputy Director of Land Records and the Deputy Commissioner of Bengaluru Urban district advised the petitioner go to the civil court.

Illegal survey
The BMTF too investigated the matter based on the complaint and had found irregularities. Further, the Commissioner for Survey and Settlement Department too held the entire survey illegal in his inquiry report dated May 19, 2014.

In his order, the Commissioner noted, “Buckling under pressure from K M Narendra Kumar, two employees of the taluk office, D Venkatesh and N Gangaraju, did not issue the mandatory public notice.

They also did not carry out a field survey, conduct hearing of the stakeholders, demarcate the boundary according to the schedule and file a survey report. Narendra Kumar has already been suspended following raids by the Lokayukta which unearthed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income.” The Commissioner later suspended D Venkatesh and Gangaraju.

Despite these negative reports, the BBMP prepared a khata for this property.

The entire khata proceedings took place on a single day, that is June 21, 2014. Further, a bogus khata extract dated July 15, 2014 was created, based on which the Palike issued the building plan on the property. The 'original one' came months later on November 5, 2014 and differed from the earlier one.

Dr Ramesh said, “The administrative notes (tippani haale) of this property belonging to my sister Bhavani were generated in a hurry. There are 18 notings in the list.  While the 12th noting is dated 26, 2014, the13th noting, which comes after the 12th noting, is dated June 21, 2104.This makes the whole process look murky.”

Documents show that the last administrative note was on August 2, 2014 but even before the process was completed, the khata registration process was initiated on June 21, 2014 and ended on June 26, 2014. The khata certificate was issued on July 15, 2014.

When contacted, BBMP commissioner G Kumar Naik said he will look into the matter and added that if the khata has been obtained fraudulently, it can be revoked.
DH News Service