Relative impact: After riding high, BS Yeddyurappa lands in trouble

Riding high on the success of a major surgery to his cabinet, chief minister BS Yeddyurappa received the biggest blow to his credibility as allegations of twin land scams benefiting his sons and son-in-law tumbled out of the cupboard on Tuesday.
Opposition leaders HD Kumaraswamy and Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said Yeddyurappa misused land acquisition rules to help his sons and son-in-law to benefit to the tune of Rs10 crore.

The JD (S) and Congress leaders asked the chief minister to quit and demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the property deal. It has been alleged that the chief minister’s office played a role in denotifying land notified by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for the formation of Arkavathi Layout.

BDA rules do not allow the sale of the land once it has been notified.

It is alleged that the chief minister’s sons BY Raghavendra, BY Vijayendra and son-in-law Sohan Kumar bought the notified land at a throwaway price when Yeddyurappa was deputy CM. Later when he became the chief minister, the same land was denotified, thereby increasing the commercial value of the property. What makes the denotifying questionable is the fact that the BDA had awarded a compensation of Rs17,18,390 lakh to landowners on July 1, 2004. But when the file for denotification was sent to the CM's office this aspect seems to have been overlooked.

Procedures stipulate that before denotifying any land the issue has to be placed before a committee headed by the chief minister. But it has been alleged that even this step was not followed. Similar modus operandi was used on another piece of land of 16 guntas with survey number 56/2. This land was taken into possession by former minister SN Krishnaiah Shetty through a GPA and was sold to Dhavalagiri Property Developers Private Limited, owned by Sohan Kumar, son-in-law of Yeddyurappa.