A multi-crore realty investment by Bangalore Central MP P C Mohan in Devanahalli has links to a “dubious” cooperative society that got a huge parcel of land belonging to a mutt in a murky deal some 50 years ago.
As a result, the government’s Satellite Town Ring Road (STRR) Planning Authority, which regulates development of Bengaluru’s outskirts, has asked Mohan to explain this.
Mohan, a three-time BJP MP, has realty interests through a partnership firm PC Realty in 42 acres in Devanahalli where housing projects are coming up. The STRR Planning Authority has threatened to cancel the building plans for the projects if Mohan fails to clarify.
Of the 42 acres, the bone of contention is 4.4 acres of land in survey number 56 at Jodi Lakshmipura village that Mohan purchased in December 2013.
Documents with DH show that this land originally belonged to Sri Sringeri Shivaganga Sharada Peetham, a branch of the main Sringeri Mutt.
The erstwhile Mysore government granted a total of 208.2 acres — survey numbers 2-9, 11-39 and 56 in Jodi Lakshmipura village — to the mutt in 1959.
In 1965, the Muzrai department decided to hand over all of 208.2 acres to the Air Force Officers Farming/Housing Cooperative Society. In July 1968, the then revenue secretary rejected the deal saying only the mutt can sell the land, and not the government. In spite of this, a sale deed was executed between the Muzrai department and the society in November that year.
Curiously, the cooperatives department has said the Society does not exist on record.
When contacted, Mohan said he got the 4.4 acres on survey number 56 from one Ramesh Narayan, who originally owned survey number 58. “For proper utilisation of properties, the society and Narayan exchanged properties,” he said in a statement.
In 2013, Narayan and his family sold the land to Mohan. The mutt, which moved the court to reclaim the 208.2 acres, issued a public notice in 2015 stating that it was the “absolute owner” of the lands. But in May 2017, the mutt, under a new leadership, struck a “deed of confirmation” with the society ratifying the 1968 sale. The lands today are worth hundreds of crores.
In August 2017, the cooperatives department asked the stamps & registration department not to register any sale deed pertaining to the society as “there is no information on whether or not the society is registered”, a stand the cooperatives authorities have maintained.
Some disciples are fighting to get back the mutt’s lands. “It’s unfortunate that Mohan, being an MP, did not verify the background of the land he was purchasing,” Anand T R, a patron fighting the mutt’s cause, said. Mohan said he declared these investments in his poll affidavits, although he has not listed out details. In 2014, he showed investments worth Rs 14.65 crore through PC Realty and in 2019, he listed liabilities of Rs 8.8 crore (including spouse) to the firm.
The STRR Planning Authority has also issued a notice to Sai Srushti Onehub Projects LLP seeking an explanation on why its building plan approval — the company is developing realty projects on 90 acres of the disputed mutt lands — should not be revoked.