Karnataka IAS officer in jail over land deal

Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer M. K. Aiyappa, posted as deputy commissioner of Bangalore Rural, was Thursday sent to jail for a day by a court here pending bail in an alleged illegal land deal case.

Aiyappa, a 2002 batch IAS officer, and three other officials were arrested late Wednesday by police attached to Lokayukta (ombudsman) on charges of forging documents to convert government land to private land and selling it to private people for profit.

The charges against the four are that they misused power and forged documents to transfer 32 acres of government land in north Bangalore to a private individual and in turn selling it off to others for over Rs. 70 million in 2005.

The present price of this land is now estimated at around Rs.600 million as it is close to where the new Bangalore International Airport came up.

The Lokayukta police registered the case in November last year on a complaint by a resident of the area.

The four have sought bail from the Lokayukta court judge N. K. Sudhindra Rao, who ordered their jailing for a day Thursday.