Spurred by a Supreme Court ruling in its favour, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has issued final notification for acquisition of land for Shivaram Karanth Layout, but the road ahead could include legal hurdles and protests as opposition to the project mounts. Protesters have already filed a review petition in the apex court ( See box ).
The land acquisition problem can be traced back to 2008 when the BDA had issued a preliminary notification for 3,546 acres in 17 villages in north Bengaluru. However, the project did not take off owing to over 15,000 objections from landowners.
From 2008 to 2014, a total of 703.2 acres were denotified under BJP and Congress governments.
In 2015, the Karnataka High Court quashed the acquisition notification, which the BDA challenged in the apex court. Meanwhile, the authority issued No Objection Certificates (NOCs) to landowners for over 1,200 acres, allowing them to convert agricultural land for residential purpose. The BDA has also given NOCs to several gated communities and private layouts between 2015 and 2018. Multiple sources in the BDA and landowners have confirmed this.
In August 2018, however, the Supreme Court directed the BDA to issue the final notification and go ahead with formation of the layout in three months. In line with this direction, the authority issued the final notification for 3,546 acres on November 1, 2018.
However, it will now be difficult for the BDA to re-acquire the 1,200 acres that it allowed owners to develop privately.
How the layout got mired in complications
“In the 10 years since the BDA issued the preliminary notification, over 50 revenue layouts have come for which the BBMP has provided all basic amenities. There are nearly 8,000 houses in the land for which the final notification was issued,” said Nanjundappa, a former councillor and president of Shivarama Karanth Layout Farmers and Property Owners Association, which is at the forefront of opposing the layout.
“How can the BDA include denotified land — land for which they have given NOC for conversion, layout formation and land that is already developed — in the final notification? Will they demolish nearly 8,000 houses to make sites and give it for housing for others?” said R. Panchakshari, secretary of the Association.
If all developed and denotified land are dropped from the scheme, the BDA will be hard pressed to find large chunks of contiguous land to develop the layout. These were the very same issues that led to the undoing of Arkavathy Layout.
Protests have been gathering steam in the 17 villages where land was notified. A senior BDA land acquisition officer told The Hindu that they had issued the final notification as per the direction of the Supreme Court. “The court has appointed a one-man commission headed by former Karnataka High Court judge K.N. Keshavanarayana to inquire into the affairs of the layout,” the official said.
The mandate of the commission is to fix responsibility for problems pertaining to the scheme, sources said.
It has been several years since BDA has conducted an on-ground survey of the area.
“We will conduct an on-ground survey and appraise the commission of the same,” said an official.
Legal battle ahead
Residents owners of 17 villages whose land has been notified for formation of Shivaram Karanth Layout have organised themselves into the Shivarama Karanth Layout Farmers and Property Owners Association, and filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a review of its August 2018 order directing BDA to issue the final notification for the layout.
Nanjundappa, president of the Association, said that after 2015, BDA's actions were confusing: On one hand the authority challenged the quashing of land acquisition in the Supreme Court. On the other hand, it started issuing NOCs for land use conversion and layout development to land owners.
“What was more criminal was that BDA suppressed this information from the Supreme Court leading to a judgment divorced from the ground reality,” he alleged.
The Association has decided to file over 250 petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the final notification.
