The National Committee for Protection of Natural Resources (NCPNR) has announced that it will file a case in the Supreme Court against alleged encroachment of 61 acres of forest land by Ramesh Kumar, former Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, in the Jagalkunte forest area in Kolar district.
Speaking to presspersons here on Friday, S.R. Hiremath, NCPNR president, said the task force for recovery of public land, headed by V. Balasubramanian, had documented this case in the report submitted in July last year, but encroachments had not been cleared to this day.
Mr. Hiremath pointed out that Mr. Balasubramanian's report had discussed how senior officials of the Forest Department had “refrained from removing encroachments”, even though Assistant Conservator of Forests had passed an order in 2007 for removal of encroachments.
The Task Force inspected the spot in 2010.
Mr. Balasubramanian, who was present at the press conference, said the Deputy Conservator of Forests had done a joint survey again in 2011 and submitted a detailed final report confirming the encroachment. However, the alleged encroachments have not yet been cleared even after this, he added.
Debate demanded
NCPNR has also demanded “debate and decision action” in the coming Legislature session on the task force report, which has recorded government land encroachment to the tune of 12 lakh acres, submitted to the Government in June, 2011.
Mr. Balasubramanian said that the total worth of the grabbed land, going by the guidance value, was a whopping Rs. 1,95,000 crore.
This was the biggest scam in India, more than the Spectrum 2G scam and illegal mining scam put together, he added.
He said that the Revenue Department had unilaterally wound up the task force, which shows “mala fide” intentions.
This was the only task force out to the 17 appointed since 2009 to be wound up in this manner, he added.
Mr. Balasubramanian said that encroachments were to the tune of 90,000 acres in the three districts of Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural and Ramanagaram.
There were instances of land being grabbed by real estate operators after being granted land for Information Technology parks, he added.
