Residents renew battle for removal of encroachments from Pattandur Agrahara Lake

Residents have once again sought to bring to the spotlight the issue of encroachments on Pattandur Agrahara Lake by urging the people's representatives to take up the issue.

Namma Whitefield, a civil rights group, said that even two years after the high court stayed the operation of a 1980 land tribunal order which ruled that 11 acres and 22 guntas of the lake land as 'Hiduvali land', officials have not made efforts to take possession of the land and rejuvenate the lake.

"The encroachers are still sitting in possession of the land," said Sandeep Anirudhan, convener of the group.

Many residents have started an online campaign to draw the attention of the higher authorities.

The dispute over a part of the lake land measuring 11 acres and 22 guntas, situated in survey number 54 of Pattandur Agrahara village, dates back to 1993. The owner, H B Munivenakatappa, had filed a suit to defend the occupancy rights he had obtained from the land tribunal in 1980.

The trial court ruled in his favour, declaring the land as 'Hiduvali land' and not 'tank bed' as the state government claimed. The government then fought a long legal battle starting from 1995 to 2019 at the trial court, high court, and even the Supreme Court where it failed to win the case.

Meanwhile, in 2018, the government filed a writ petition in the high court challenging the land tribunal order.

The government had argued that though the land has been deemed 'lake land' in revenue records, the tribunal has ruled in favour of the private party on the basis of the deposition and witnesses.

In an interim order, the court had stayed the operation of the tribunal's order.