HC pulls up state govt for disobeying court orders

The Karnataka High Court on Thursday pulled up the state government for disobeying court orders. It was during a hearing to consider the representation for the allocation of land.

A division bench of Justice H G Ramesh and Justice B M Shyam Prasad were hearing a civil contempt petition filed by D Babu, proprietor of Umrah Developers, Bengaluru who had moved the court seeking directions to initiate contempt proceedings against the accused of disobeying the court directions.

The bench orally observed that the government has stopped functioning and directed the government to adhere to court orders with immediate effect.

According to the petitioners, the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District had issued an auction notification dated August 23, 2008, for government land in Survey No 13 of Challaghatta Village, Kengeri Hobli, Bangalore Urban Taluk comprising of Block 1 and 2 together constituting a total area of 1 acre 22 guntas.

The petitioner had participated in the bid auction and bid for both the properties.
In April 2009, the subject property was acquired by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for the formation of the Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout.

At the same time, the petitioner had submitted 25% of the bid amount in view of the fact that the said land was not notified by the BDA for acquisition.

The petitioner thereafter sought for a refund of his deposited bid amount and made various representations before the authorities which were not considered.

The petitioner then moved the court seeking consideration of his representations and the court disposed of the petitions directing the authorities to consider his representations in the order dated August 1, 2009.

Despite the orders of the court the authorities had not considered the petitioner's representation seeking allotment of an alternate land in lieu of the scheduled land or refund of the bid amount deposited with the authorities.