Amidst din in the Karnataka Assembly on Monday over corruption in de-notification of 541 acres of land in Arkavathi layout formed by Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), the Chief Minister, under attack from Opposition BJP, announced a judicial probe into the charges.
The Chief Minister’s announcement came amid pandemonium in the Assembly as Opposition BJP trained its guns on him and continued its dharna in the House for the third day insisting on a CBI probe into the “scam” amounting to Rs 1,000 crore.
Siddaramaiah said, “The Government has already ordered a judicial inquiry into the matter and it will be headed by a retired judge.” Coming down on the BJP members for demanding CBI probe, he said a “judicial inquiry would bring the truth out and some of them will get exposed. Therefore, they are afraid of judicial inquiry. If they are not at fault, they should face the probe.”
Siddaramaiah justified the de-notifying of the land and said the de-notification was as per the High Court guidelines and there was nothing illegal about it. The court warned of contempt proceedings if denotification was not done in a week. He said, “We had no option but to denotify the land.”
The major Opposition led by its floor leader Jagadish Shettar continued their dharna over corruption and demanded a probe by CBI. Shettar also demanded the resignation of CM over alleged corruption in de-notifying the land. Producing a document, BJP leader Jagadish Shettar said “this has the signature of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah who approved the file pertaining to denotification of 541 acres in Arkavati layout. Therefore, he should immediately tender his resignation.”
He alleged Siddaramaiah had lost the moral right to govern because he “lied” in the Assembly that he had not signed any document pertaining to Arkavati de-notification.
Shettar said, “Siddaramaiah had on March 31, 2014 approved the file pertaining to the de-notification. Earlier, he had told the House that he was not personally responsible and not signed the document and everything was done by the officials. But the document has proved he lied and made our stand clear.”
The controversy over land de-notification of 541 acres in Arkavathi layout developed by BDA by the Congress Government led by Siddaramaiah has brought back the devil in land de-notification.