Daijiworld Media Network – Bengaluru (SHP)
Bengaluru, Jun 12: Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) acquired its own land by paying Rs 5.9 crore as compensation, reports Bangalore Mirror.
It is quite interesting to learn the details of this story. The BBMP working on a road widening project proposed to build an eight-lane signal-free corridor at Okalipuram. This required an acquisition of land near Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Railway station.
On January 31, 2019, the authorities paid Rs 5,92,42,280 in the form of a DD issued by Syndicate Bank. The compensation was paid to M/s Khoday Eshwarasa & Sons for the acquisition of 2,115 sq ft of land.
When the work was underway, the BBMP ended up demolishing part of Khoday's distillery. The distillery is situated behind where the eight-lane corridor is going to come up. Infuriated by the demolishing, a writ petition was filed against the BBMP on April 15.
Considering the matter, the High Court issued a re-survey of the land on May 3. Once the necessary findings were obtained, major aspects were revealed.
According to the City Survey Department, a 'B' Kharab land cannot be owned or transferred to private parties. The land in question was a 'B' Kharab land, making BBMP its true owner.
“The petitioner is in possession of 679.23 sq. metres of land in Survey No 28, which is a ‘B’ Kharab land,” J Vijaya Bhawani, Deputy Director of Records, City Survey, said in an interview with Bangalore Mirror.
A letter in regards to the confusion has been written by M/s Khoday Eshwarasa & Sons to the BBMP commissioner.
The letter read as follows - “In your letter you have requested us to hand over the possession of the land even without surveying the land and making payment of the sale consideration. Please note that the partnership firm is having 11 partners. The other partners are not inclined to part with the land without property survey/demarcation and without receiving the sale consideration. Therefore, we once again request you to survey the land, decide the exact extent to be purchased by you, demark the same and fix the sale consideration.”
This has come as an embarrassment to the BBMP and it is looking ways to cover this blunder.
It is said that a close verification will be done regarding the documents. It is highly likely that the BBMP will be criticized for this. Further, it was also noted that the compensation was paid rather sooner than expected unlike, other cases where the compensation takes years to realize.
Keshav Deshpande, Head of Legal Cell, BBMP, in an interview with Bangalore Mirror said that the petitioner (M/s Khoday Eshwarasa & Sons) had submitted two more documents on Monday claiming ownership of the land.
“We have to verify the documents produced by the petitioner. We will take a decision on this only after thoroughly checking the survey report submitted by the Deputy Director of Land Records. As of now, the question of BBMP planning to recover the money paid to the petitioner does not arise,” he said.
The objections and hassle rose when the petitioner showed contempt over the damage on his property and at the same time claiming the land to be his.
“We have verified the documents submitted by the petitioner at the time of paying compensation. We went ahead with paying the compensation as we found the documents to be correct.” N Manjunatha Prasad, BBMP Commissioner, stated.
Now that the re-survey brought into light some new piece of information, there is possibility that the petitioner will be required to pay back the compensation paid to him earlier.
During the same time in an interview with Bangalore Mirror, K L Ananthapadmanab justified saying, “Honest people, including Lord Sri Krishna, have always been troubled by others. We have not cheated the government and we will not cheat the government.”