The de-notification racket

On February 5, 2010, ABIDe had written to the CM, anticipating problems likely to arise from the slew of denotification orders issued by the urban development department. It had termed these denotifications as ‘non-transparent’. The letter had also recommended that “the ad hoc denotification of notified property be stopped completely. Denotification be permitted only under a small set of circumstances and those that meet a certain specific criteria like school, hospital, community centres and similarly defined properties could be permitted for denotification...’’
    
ABIDe’s Plan Bengaluru 2020 had also made specific recommendations on reforms in land management. But, till today, they’ve remained only on paper. “I met the CM again today to reaffirm the need to implement PB 2020, if he is serious about eradicating corruption. I also urged him to bring transparency into the process of notificiation and denotification of lands, which is a source for much administrative discretion and therefore, corruption. He has promised to look into both urgently,’’ Rajeev said.

For the full report in the TOI, click here

Meanwhile, look at what the CM has been upto:

Excerpts from this TOI report:

Even orders of Supreme Court and Karnataka High Court didn’t deter chief minister B S Yeddyurappa from his denotifying spree — flouting strict orders and defying a strong protest by officials, the CM has denotified 5 acres, 13 guntas of land acquired by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for a layout at Nagarabhavi as early as 1982.

from this:    

Land owner of the notified land in Nagarabhavi had finally got their petition to chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, with BJP MLA M P Kumaraswamy’s help. The CM asked officials of the BDA and urban development department (UDD) to go ahead and denotify the land. On December 9, 2009, the BDA commissioner wrote to the UDD principal secretary and said it can’t be done. “Despite the BDA strictly adhering to the rulebook, the land owners filed petitions in various courts, seeking denotification. But the verdict in all these cases has been in favour of the BDA. The layout formation is in the final stages. Hence, it cannot be denotified,’’ he stated. He even sent copies of the court orders.
    
UDD principal secretary D Thangaraj referred the file to the chief minister asking him to review his earlier order. An irked CM contradicted the officials’ report and issued another order: “The layout cannot be formed here. The land is not in the possession of the BDA, but is with the applicant. So, consider this as a special case and denotify it.’’ With no way to go, the officials denotified the land and issued the order in June 2010.

from this:

Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa on Friday admitted that he had denotified some lands notified for forming the Arkavathy Layout in Bangalore. But he didn’t spell out the reasons for denotification. His defence: “There’s a provision under the law for denotification. My actions are not illegal,’’ Yeddyurappa told reporters here on Friday.
    
He confirmed that he had signed the denotification papers in two different ways. “Both signatures are mine,’’ the CM said. Former CM and JD(S) state unit president H D Kumaraswamy had pointed out the difference in signatures on the file related to the denotification.
    
Referring to the allotment of a BDA site to his son B Y Raghavendra, the CM denied that his son had given a false affidavit to get the site. “I have given sites to all MLAs and MPs, irrespective of their parties. In the process, my son who is an MP, also got a site,’’ Yeddyurappa said.
    
Accusing Kumaraswamy of making baseless charges against him and his family, Yeddyurappa accused Kumaraswamy of denotifying over 60 acres of land in a day. “I want Kumaraswamy to introspect. The highest number of denotifications were done in his period,’’ the CM claimed.

from this:

Despite the clarifications, there are no answers to these issues:

• Can you buy and sell land which is under the possession of a government agency? Even after this transaction, can it be denotified in favour of the seller?
• Flouting rules, CM’s sons and son-in-law bought land, which was in possession of BDA (survey number 55/2). No action was taken. Instead, later, it was denotified to benefit them. The CM denotified his trusted lieutenant’s land (survey number 56), which was later sold to the firm whose directors are the CM’s sons and son-in-law. Land acquired 23 years ago was denotified at Hulimavu.
• On July 18, 2009, chief minister B S Yeddyurappa used his discretion and allotted a BDA site measuring 50x80 ft to his son B Y Raghavendra at survey number 25/2, Nagashettyhalli in RMV II Stage. Raghavendra paid Rs 8 lakh. The market price in the area is close to Rs 2 crore.
• After assuming office, in two years (till June 2010), chief minister B S Yeddyurappa has denotified 179 acres and 31 guntas of land in Bangalore. That means, a whopping 77,59,089 sqft of land.

So, the justification of the CM is that the others have also indulged in such deeds in the past. Apparently, even the practice of affixing two different signatures was also copied from the indefatigable and incorrigible, Sri H D Kumaraswamy.

These apart, the misdeeds of his trusted lieutinant, Sri Katta Subramania Naidu and his son, are a saga by themselves. Of course, all of these pale into insignificance compared to the ones indulged in by the Reddy brothers.

Is there salvation at all?

Muralidhar Rao