A 3.28 acre parcel of government land worth nearly Rs. 1,000 crore was recovered by the district administration from real estate developer Prestige Estates at Pattandur Agrahara in Whitefield on Monday.
The recovered land has high-rise apartment blocks and villas under construction, while some are occupied.
Bangalore East division tahsildar Harish Nayak told The Hindu that the land had been granted by the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) to Joy Ice Cream Company on lease for a period of 30 years. However, Joy Ice Cream Company, which claimed that they bought the land, in turn sold it to the Prestige group in 2006, he said.
Report filed
The Revenue Department, which learned about the encroached land, filed a report and received a direction from the State government on May 22 this year to recover the land, he said. Subsequently, a team of officials led by Deputy Commissioner (Bangalore Urban) V. Shankar went to the spot and recovered the land. “Though the land has been recovered we are yet to decide upon the demolition process,” Mr. Nayak said.
However, Aravind Pai, Executive Director (Legal) of Prestige Estate Projects Ltd., said that the company had purchased nine acres from Joy Ice cream legally and had even got the project plan sanctioned from the Bangalore Development Authority. “We owned the property for the past nine years and there was no issue since then. However, on Monday the district administration officials took over the plot without even serving a notice and giving us chance to explain,” he said.
Mr. Pai said the company would take legal recourse in this regard .
It was ‘sold’ in 2006 by Joy Ice Cream, to whom it was leased out by KIADB
