It is a mystery as to how most of the buildings that have come up on encroached government land in Sarakki Layout have legitimate khata issued by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
The area has seen residential buildings since the early 1980s. Many property owners have documents tracing back the ownership of the land to Shambappa, the then landlord of Jaraganahalli.
Revenue officials said most of the plots were registered in sub-registrar’s offices with survey numbers of private land next to the lake. “This is a standard modus operandi . The sale deeds are void as they would have wrong survey numbers and the land the buyer takes possession of would be different,” the official said.
Connivance of authorities and encroachers would ensure that constructions on such land are recognised by the authorities. For instance, Sarakki lake area was under a gram panchayat earlier, later under a city municipal council and now in the BBMP limits. Residential buildings in the early 80s were recognised by the gram panchayat and passed onto the CMC with a house list number, which continued under the BBMP as well. These are the houses that have got regular khata from the BBMP, an official said. Rarely do newer constructions in the area have a regular khata, he said.
BBMP Commissioner M. Lakshminarayana said a khata was no guarantee for ownership of land and it was given only for the purpose of taxation.
Action against officials likely
Bengaluru (Urban) district administration is now compiling a report of all the officials who allegedly made possible such encroachments. Deputy Commissioner V. Shankar said action would be taken against officials who had connived with encroachers, under Section 192 (b) of Karnataka Land Revenue Act. Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force chief T. Suneel Kumar said if the district administration lodges a complaint, action would be initiated against such officials.
BBMP Commissioner M. Lakshminarayana said the roads on encroached lake area had come up probably during the execution of ward-wise works by the local councillor. He said stringent action would be taken against any official found guilty of conniving with encroachers.
