Bengaluru South taluk Tahsildar arrested in land transfer scam

The Lokayukta police on Monday arrested Bengaluru South taluk tahsildar  Dayananda, a KAS officer, for forging documents and illegally transferring land belonging to Vijaya Bank Employees’ Housing Cooperative Society Limited on Bannerghatta Road, in the name of a dead man.

“We summoned him to the Lokayukta office on Monday for questioning. He has been found to have played a key role in the illegal land transfer. We arrested him soon after he arrived,”  Superintendent of Police (Lokayukta, Bengaluru) Sonia Narang told Deccan Herald. The KAS officer has been booked under IPC Sections 120 B, 218, 467, 471, 477A and Section 13/1/D  of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Prior to Dr Dayananda’s arrest, the first in the case, the Lokayukta police raided his office after obtaining a warrant from the court. Dayananda was among 11 persons whose houses were raided by the Lokayukta police on Sunday.

The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) had acquired one acre and 34 guntas of land owned by K Abbayappa for a layout at Bilekahalli in 1994 and transferred the land to Vijaya Bank Employees’ Housing Co-operative Society (VBEHCS). Though Abbayappa had died in 2001, an application was filed in his name before Bengaluru South taluk administration in 2014 for conversion of the said land. Taluk officials forwarded the file to the BDA and a no objection certificate (NoC) was issued. Taluk officials then moved the file to the Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner, who approved the change of land use.

The VBEHCS found that even before the conversion took place in January 2015, there was a sale agreement for 34 guntas between three sons of Abbayappa and Ethiraj, a resident of JP Nagar, in November 2014. According to Ramakanth Shetty of VBEHCS, the sale agreement in favour of Ethiraj, also known as Raju among revenue officials, came to light in July 2015. The VBEHCS had filed complaints with the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force and the Lokayukta police.