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The sleuths produced N M Neelakantha, special land acquisition officer, Bangalore City and first division assistant Thippaiah before the magistrate. The two were remanded to judicial custody.
The State government had acquired land near Kengeri owned by Byrappa for a project. Byrappa submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister requesting that his land be dropped from the acquisition process as he was poor. The Chief Minister had forwarded the memorandum to Special Land Acquisition office directing officials to consider the request.
However, Neelakantha demanded Rs 50,000 to forward the memorandum to the Revenue Department for consideration and asked Byrappa to pay the first installment of Rs 10,000 immediately.
An unwilling Byrappa lodged a complaint with the Lokayukta police.
Byrappa went to Neelakantha’s office with the money on Thursday morning. However, the latter was on leave.
When contacted, Neelakantha told Byrappa to hand over the money to Thippaiah, saying he would collect it from him in the evening. The sleuths arrested Thippaiah when he was accepting the money.
They arrested Neelakantha in the evening.