The Special Lokayukta Court on Tuesday ordered the Lokayukta Police to file an FIR against the former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and Housing Minister V. Somanna and investigate the complaint of land grab against them.
The order was passed under Section 156 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The probe will be headed by the Lokayukta Superintendent of Police (Bangalore Urban). The court has given him time until December 26 to submit his findings.
If the Lokayukta Police find evidence against the accused, their probe will culminate in the submission of a charge sheet.
The order of Judge N.K. Sudhindra Rao is a result of a complaint filed by software engineer-turned social-activist Ravi Krishna Reddy, who on November 17 iled a private complaint before the court alleging that Mr. Yeddyurappa and Mr. Somanna were complicit in the illegal denotification of a plot that had been acquired by the Bangalore Development Authority for the formation of the Jnanabharathi Layout.
Mr. Reddy, who had made an unsuccessful bid in the 2008 Assembly elections as an independent candidate, alleged that 22 guntas (each gunta is about 1,080 sq. ft) of land belonging to one D. Lingaiah (Accused Number 4) had been acquired by the BDA by paying him compensation and even handed over to the engineering section for development.
On September 4, 2004, Mr. Lingaiah allegedly sold the land to Ms. Shylaja ignoring the fact that the land no longer belonged to him and was in fact government property.
On March 14, 2005 Mr. Lingaiah executed a “rectification deed” in favour of Ms. Shylaja claiming that the land acquired by the BDA had been returned to him through a denotification order dates March 4, 2005. But the fact, according to the complainant, was that the denotification was never published in the official gazette and hence was invalid.
