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No respite. BS Yeddyurappa hit by another chargesheet SEZ NewsFormer chief minister BS Yeddyurappa is in trouble again. The Lokayukta on Monday filed a chargesheet in an illegal denotification case, accusing the former chief minister of denotifying 20 acres of land at the proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ) near Devanahalli in favour of a Bangalore-based newspaper The denotified land, located at Hoovinayakanahalli in Bangalore North, was earmarked for setting up a hardware technology park. But due to the denotification, the state exchequer lost `8.64 crores since the development and service charges were waived in favour of the publishers, said the Lokayukta report. Apart from Yeddyurappa, Lokayukta officials have also filed a chargesheet against industries minister Murugesh Nirani and former minister Katta Subramanya Naidu for "criminal misconduct as public servants in arbitrarily denotifying land". Explaining the report, PK Shivashankar, superintendent of police, said the land located in Survey Nos. 124, 125, and 126 belonged to the owners of the Bangalore-based paper. The government acquired the land on December 2006 for a proposed SEZ under the KIAD Act, following which the owners filed an application to drop the denotification, since they had plans to construct an industrial plant. However, the special land acquisition officials turned down their request and handed over the property to the KIADB.
Though the Lokayukta investigation could not establish any pecuniary advantage, the illegal denotification of 20 acres of land clearly shows that Yeddyurappa had misused his official power, causing loss to the state exchequer, the report said. Shivashankara said that Katta - abusing his official position - had arbitrarily denotified 4.6 acres of land belonging to one KM Nagappa and Ranganna at the Dobbespet industrial area in 2007. Katta Subramanya Naidu had allegedly ordered for the denotification of the said land without even consulting the official concerned. Even Nirani recommended the decision of his predecessor (Katta), directing the officials to denotify the land without bothering to collect the development and charges from the parties, which caused a loss of Rs1.31 crore to the state exchequer. |
The Lokayukta - which investigated the case - found that Yeddyurappa – who was the then chief minister - had recommended the denotification, despite notes from secretaries who were against the move. The present industrial minister Murugesh Nirani gave his nod for the denotification without even taking into account the required fees for the process.