Karnataka: Litigant claims 21k acres of forest land in Chikkamagaluru and Hassan

Bengaluru: Days after a DH report on a Karnataka High Court order ruling over 500 acres of Bengaluru forest in favour of one M B Nemanna Gowda, an investigation has now found that the individual has filed 17 other cases laying claim to nearly 21,000 acre of forest land.

While initial inquiries by DH last week had found that Gowda alias M B Manmanatha had filed 10 cases, further search eventually found more cases. Except for the one case pertaining to the forest land in Bengaluru's Kengeri -- valued at over Rs 30,000 crore  -- other claims pertain to the lands spread across Chikkamagaluru and Hassan districts.

Several of the forest lands claimed by Gowda, similar to the land in Kengeri, were notified decades ago with some notifications dating back to 1935. Any attempt to divert them without permission from the Union environment ministry is a direct violation of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 as well as several Supreme Court orders.

The 16 cases verified by DH put the total extent of land claimed by Gowda at 20,845 acres, which includes forest land as well as some part of revenue land. The remaining two cases pertain to lands in Mudigere taluk in Chikkamagaluru district. Officials were looking into the details of the document.

The modus operandi in a majority of the petitions seem very similar: Gowda invokes a regrant order of a special deputy commissioner for Inam Abolition in Hassan division and prays to the court to order the revenue authorities to “enter” or “restore” his name in the revenue documents.

In some cases, he had also produced hand-written RTC documents dating back to the 1970s.

6,000 acres at one go

Among the petitions is WP 25126 of 2025 which lays claim to a whopping 6,260 acres reserved forest in Hassan, a district hit by man-animal conflict. It prays to the high court to direct the Sakleshpur tahsildar to enter Gowda’s name in the RTCs by pointing to an alleged regrant order dating back to May 1975.

Further, it accuses the forest department of “encroaching” his land and seeks “alternative land or compensation”.

Sources said the trail of documents in several cases seems to be bogus. “Even a cursory look raises suspicion on the genuineness of the documents. It is a surprise that he got a favourable order in the high court. The entire matter will be placed before the court along with a request to condone the delay,” the source said.

No police case yet

Interestingly, no FIR is registered against Gowda though Assistant Conservator of Forest, Mudigere sub division filed a case with the police on November 28. The complaint, based on a September 2024 assistant commissioner’s order, pointed to forging of documents to grab 512.26 acres land in several villages of taluk. Police had said they were waiting for the regional forest officer to submit additional documents before filing the FIR.

Forest, Ecology and Environment Minister Eshwar B Khandre said he was surprised that the police case was not filed, considering the urgent need to investigate a larger conspiracy.

“I will speak to the authorities concerned to understand the delay in registering the FIR. This is a high priority case. There seems to be some influential people behind Gowda using him as a proxy. We have launched a coordinated effort to take these cases to a logical end and arraign everyone involved,” he said.

Meanwhile, in view of the fact that Gowda’s claim includes over 5,000 acres of revenue land, Principal Secretary, Revenue Department, Rajender Kumar Kataria has ordered the legal section to coordinate with the forest department.

“Even as we work with the forest department to fight for forest lands, I have directed officials to look into all the document trails to defend revenue lands,” he said.