A T Ramaswamy, former legislator and chairman of the committee investigating land encroachments during H D Kumaraswamy’s rule, has alleged that former governor V S Ramadevi and former Member of Parliament H T Sangliana had encroached on several acres of government land.
Ramaswamy, who staged a protest at Ananda Rao Circle on Monday, alleged that Ramadevi had acquired four acres in Survey 59/P11 at Kuduregere in Jala hobli, Bangalore North taluk, by producing false documents.
He said a case had been registered against the former governor under Section 136 (3) of the Land Revenue Act, but the then special deputy commissioner had dropped it.
The fact that Ramadevi had submitted false documents was established when the Bangalore Regional Commissioner took up the matter for verification, said Ramaswamy, showing reporters copies of the land documents, including the RTC.
Former parliamentarian H T Sangliana’s family too acquired about six acres at Gadenahalli at Jala hobli, he said. Sangliana was not available for comment.
Ramaswamy said the government had dropped about 428 cases pertaining to acquisition of over 1,000 acres in and around Bangalore, as it failed to verify the original documents.
The value of these lands, he claimed, was estimated to be around Rs 1,500 crore.
The special deputy commissioner had allegedly directed several tahsildars to issue khatas to encroachers, he said.
“The issue had been reviewed by Regional Commissioner K S Prabhakar who said the 428 cases were dropped to favour political bigwigs,” Ramaswamy said.
The orders were passed in Bangalore North and North Additional, Bangalore East, Anekal and Bangalore South, with Bangalore North (Additional) topping the list with 356 cases.
He said a large number of cases passed under Section 136 (3), conferring title on the claimants, disregarded the reports of the tahsildars and also violated government instruction to follow the procedure for verification of original documents.
He said the lands had been registered in the name of unknown people (benami) by many political bigwigs. The government should reveal the identity of the land allottees, he said.
Claiming that vast tracts of government land had been encroached upon — 8,334 acres in Bangalore City alone — Ramaswamy demanded that the government implement his and the recommendations of the Task Force report submitted by V Balasubramanian.
