Now, former Speaker named in land scam
A task force appointed by the State government and constituted by the Supreme Court has written to the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to look into the encroachment of nearly 60 acres of land in the Janagalkunte forest area in Kolar.
Chairman of the task force for Protection of Government Land V Balasubramanian, in a letter written early this week, has asked the CEC to visit Janagalkunte forest, as the State Forest Department has neither vacated the encroachment nor enforced the provisions of the Karnataka Forests Act, 1963.
The Forest Department did not vacate the encroachment, despite a joint survey in April this year confirming the same. However, after the completion of the joint survey, the Conservator of Forests Kumar Pushkar passed an order stating that he was unclear about the encroachment and hence ordered for a fresh survey.
However, Balasubramanian writes: “What is strange about the order is that despite a final joint survey approved by the Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF), the Conservator of Forests remains doubtful and orders another joint survey, which would go on ad infinitum.
Secondly, even though the Karnataka Forests Act, 1963 accords sufficient powers to the forest officers to vacate the encroachment, he still avoids the responsibility and shifts it on to the tahsildar to clear the encroachment”.
The land that is the bone of contention is part of the nearly 2,400 acres of gomala (community grazing land) land in the border village of Rayalpadu that was notified as forest land in 1937. In 2007, U V Singh, the then Conservator of Forests, inspected the land following complaints and an order was passed asking Ramesh Kumar to vacate the encroachment within a month’s time.
Balasubramanian also pointed that Ramesh Kumar had stalled the proceedings several times. The joint survey was stalled twice in 2008 and once in 2009 despite the survey being requested by the former speaker of the Legislative Assembly. In 2009, the DCF reported that the survey was deferred after receiving a phone call from the Joint Secretary to the Chief Minister.
The task force has also asked the CEC to look into encroachment of nearly 12,000 hectares of land in Chikmagalur district by coffee planters.