Govt illegally denotified 707 acres in Arkavathi: BJP

An internal committee of State BJP, on Thursday, came out with an interim report claiming that the Siddaramaiah government illegally denotified 707 acres of land in Arkavathi Layout to mobilise resources for the recently held Lok Sabha polls.

The 295-page report, put together by a team of BJP functionaries led by former ministers Suresh Kumar and V Somanna, was submitted to party State president Pralhad Joshi. The Arkavathi Layout denotification issue was first raised by BJP in July this year during the State legislature session.

The party had claimed that the ruling Congress government had denotified hundreds of acres in the layout for monetary gains and had demanded a CBI inquiry.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in turn,  had claimed that the denotification was in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Karnataka High Court under the “remodified scheme”.

The BJP then constituted an internal committee to gather evidence to support its allegations.

The BJP report cites 12 instances wherein rules were allegedly violated and court orders flouted to denotify vast tracts of land.

Parameters

The parameters laid down by the court that land in green belt, nursery, land belonging to religious charitable trusts could be considered for denotification were misinterpreted, the report states.

 Joshi said the report would be submitted to legal experts before the party decides its next action.

The panel would be collecting more evidence in the coming months and submit its final report in January next, he said. “We will fight the issue legally and politically and take it to its logical end,” Joshi said. Joshi claimed that the government had created hurdles for the party while it was collecting documents for the report.

“Hindrances were created even while securing documents under Right to Information (RTI) Act,” he alleged.

‘CM gave clearance’

Former chief minister Jagadish Shettar said files pertaining to denotification of 422 acres in the layout had come to him, but he had not signed stating that they were not in order.
“However, Siddaramaiah gave clearance for denotification of 707 acres after assuming power,” Shettar said.