Notice to BSY, others in land case

The Karnataka High Court on Friday issued emergent notices to BJP leaders B S Yeddyurappa, Jagadish Shettar, R Ashoka and others and also issued a notice to the state government, Bangalore Development Authority and the Anti Corruption Bureau in a petition concerning illegal denotification of land.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Wing Commander G B Athri, seeking directions to Anti-Corruption Bureau to re-investigate a complaint alleging illegal denotification of land by the then chief minister Yeddyurappa, acquired by BDA to benefit R Ashoka.

The petition states that the denotification was done illegally despite officials advising against it. The BDA had acquired 18 guntas of land (survey number 10/1) at Lottegollahalli for Rajmahal Vilas II Phase through a notification on April 23, 1988.

The petition further stated that initially, the owners of the land had sought for denotification of the unutilized 9.73 guntas. But their plea was not considered, and eventually, in February 2003, the owners sold it to Ashoka for a lesser price.

It further states that despite officials ruling out the possibility of denotification, Yeddyurappa, then the CM, asked for the file and based on his orders, the land was denotified on December 31, 2009.

The petitioner also states that after obtaining documents through RTI, he had lodged a complaint before ACB. However, the ACB had replied to him stating that after obtaining opinion from the legal experts and in the light of the ‘B’ Report filed before the Special Court for Lokayukta in relation to complaint filed by Jayakumar Hiremath they cannot except on special circumstances investigate into the complaint and closed the complaint of the petitioner.

Thereafter, the petitioner states that he clarified the special circumstances of the case to Dy Superintendent of Police, ACB and when there no response, the petitioner has approached the HC seeking directions to re-investigate the complaint.