The advertisement placed by the Bangalore Development Authority in a leading Kannada daily last Wednesday, exhorting the former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa's relatives to return the G-category sites allotted to them, appears to have had the intended effect.
Two days after it appeared, Mr. Yeddyurappa's nephew, S.C. Ashok, and sister's daughter-in-law, Deepa, went to the BDA headquarters. They executed the necessary paper work on Friday and surrendered the 2,400 sq ft. sites that were allotted to them at Chandra Layout under the Chief Minster's discretionary quota, when Mr. Yeddyurappa was at the helm. The prime sites, estimated to be worth at least Rs. 1.5 crore each, were allotted to them at a little over Rs. 5 lakh apiece.
Confirming this, sources in the Sub-Registrar's office said that the cancellation deed has not yet been executed as the computer operators are on strike. “But what remains to be done is just a formality. The sites have been wrested out of their hands now,” said an official. A controversy erupted in October 2010 when RTI activist B.M. Shivkumar exposed how Mr. Yeddyurappa had “misused” his discretionary powers to allot prime housing sites to his kin. Following the expose, Mr. Yeddyurappa's relatives announced that they would surrender the sites.
They wrote to the BDA seeking the cancellation of allotments and the BDA promptly returned the money paid by them for the sites. But Mr. Ashok and Ms. Deepa did not keep their promise A desperate BDA resorted to publishing the ad.
