Bangalore, Jul 26 (DHNS): The State government violated the guidelines set by the High Court in denotifying developed land, including residential sites allotted to applicants and roads meant to be part of the proposed Arkavathy Layout, Leader of Opposition Jagadish Shettar alleged in the Legislative Assembly on Friday.

A division bench of the High Court had laid down guidelines for dropping any land from acquisition for the Arkavathy Layout. Green belt land, residential buildings, factories, charitable institutions and nurseries were included in the guidelines.

But officials of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) played mischief and identified land for denotification at places like Rachenahalli, Jakkur and other areas though they were not as per the guidelines, Shettar claimed in his submission on denotification.

A case in point is the denotification of 15 parcels of land identified as nurseries, even though none was registered as such.

Even land where residential sites have been formed and allotted to applicants have been denotified and given back to the original land owners. The allottees are left in the lurch, Shettar pointed out.

The court had clearly stated that land in Arkavathy Layout should be denotified based on its status as on 2003. But BDA officials considered 2012 status while recommending denotification, the BJP leader said, suggesting that it was a clear violation of the court’s guidelines.

The government should have verified whether the BDA’s recommendation was as per the court guidelines before deciding on denotification, he said.

Jagadish Shettar alleged that Siddaramaiah had given the green signal for issuing denotification letter dated June 18, 2014, despite knowing that it was in violation of guidelines laid down by the Karnataka High Court for dropping land acquisition.

“Officials in the Urban Development Department also objected to the recommendation on denotification of 541 acres of land. Instead of rejecting it, the chief minister has denotified the land. It is a massive scam in which huge amount of money has changed hands. Former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa was blamed for denotifying some 10 acres of land, but Siddaramaiah denotified huge track of lands in one go,” Shettar alleged.

“The file (recommending denotification of land) had come to me when I was the chief minister in 2013. But I rejected it as it was against the guidelines. The denotification was done by this government in order to raise funds for the recent parliamentary elections,” he charged, triggering an uproar by Congress members.

The House witnessed a pandemonium as the BJP and the Congress members led by Shettar and Siddaramaiah, respectively, traded charges and indulged in heated arguments.

‘Touts took advantage’

The BJP’s Yelahanka legislator, S R Vishwanath, claimed that touts and middlemen had taken advantage of the court orders by getting valuable land denotified from the government.

Giving an example, he said farmers in survey numbers of 90, 90/1, 90/2 and 89/1 gave away their lands for forming a residential layout.

But touts took the General Power of Attorney (GPA) from them and later got the land denotified.

Shettar also alleged that the then Congress government headed by S M Krishna had denotified over 1,000 acres of land meant for the layout at the time of issuing the final notification in 2004.

Did nothing wrong, ready for CID probe, says chief minister

Rebutting the charges levelled by the Opposition BJP that he illegally denotified 541 acres of land in the Arkavathy Layout, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah asserted on Friday that the denotification was “strictly as per” the High Court guidelines and there was “nothing illegal” about it. He is ready to order an enquiry by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the matter, he said.

“My government has not denotified a single gunta of land so far and will not do so in the future. But as far as the denotification of 541 acres of BDA land is concerned, the High Court of Karnataka had directed the government to do it.

The court even warned of contempt proceedings if this was not done in a week. We had no option but to denotify the land,” he stated in the Assembly in reply to Leader of Opposition Jagadish Shettar’s allegation of large-scale corruption in the denotification.

The chief minister said he would not hesitate to take strict action if any specific violation of the court’s guidelines was brought to his notice.

If the Opposition still thinks the denotification was illegal, the government would not mind a CID investigation, he said, rejecting the demand for a CBI enquiry.

Nonetheless, conducting a probe will only delay the layout’s formation, he maintained.

Siddaramaiah, who was in a combative mood, used the opportunity to embarrass the BJP by repeatedly referring to denotification of 198 acres of BDA land meant forArkavathy Layout between 2007 and 2010 when B S Yeddyurappa was chief minister.

He provided all the details of denotification in the jinxed layout since 2003.

As senior BJP and Congress members haggled over interpretation of the court order, the House resembled a court hall.

Siddaramaiah tried to turn the tables on Shettar saying that the BDA had passed the resolution to denotify 541 acres of land and recommended the same to the government

in January 2013 when the latter was chief minister. But Shettar shot back saying that he had rejected the recommendation and that the BDA recommendation was not binding on the government.

Siddaramaiah further said that Shettar, being the chief minister, was aware of the BDA passing the resolutions in 2013 but did nothing to stop the agency from do so.

The decision to appoint Land Acquisition Officers of the BDA to identify and make recommendations on denotification was taken by the previous BJP government, he claimed.