Chargesheet filed against Yeddyurappa in land scam

Spelling more trouble for former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, Karnataka Lokayukta Police on Monday filed a chargesheet against him and former Industries Minister Katta Subramanya Naidu for "criminal misconduct as public servants in arbitrarily denotifying land".

It came on a day when the Lokayukta Special Court ordered probe against Yeddyurappa and Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani on a complaint accusing them of illegally ordering cancellation of an industrial site on the basis of a forged signature.

The chargesheet against Yeddyurappa and Katta have been filed under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, City Lokayukta SP P K Shivashankara told reporters.

Yeddyurappa "caused" heavy loss to the state exchequer by denotifying the land by waiving development and service charges amounting to Rs 8.64 crore, he said.

Shivashankara said Yeddyurappa, when he was chief minister in 2008, abused his official power and illegally denotified 20 acres acquired by the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) for setting up an SEZ at Hoovinayankanahalli near Devanahalli.

The land belongs to the owners of leading English and Kannada dailies, he said.

Prior to denotifying the land, Yeddyurappa had sent the application for denotification asking KIADB officials to calculate the amount of development and service charges to be paid by the land owners,  Shivashankara said.

Earlier, KIADB officials had rejected the land owners application for denotification of land in 2006, claiming that the land fell in the purview of the SEZ project and would derail it, Shivashankara said.

The CAG report of 2011-2012 had highlighted the "scam", he said.

Shivashankara said Katta, abusing his official position, had arbitrarily denotified 4.6 acre land belonging to one K M Nagappa and Ranganna at Dobbespet in 2007.

In his complaint filed before the Lokayukta court, Industrialist Alam Pasha had alleged KIADB had allotted him 26 acre land for setting up an industry.

However, Yeddyurappa and Nirani cancelled the allotment on the basis of a forged letter, seeking cancellation, Pasha said in his complaint.

Directing the Lokayukta SP to probe the complaint, Lokayukta Judge N K Sudheendra Rao asked him to submit a report by June 27.

Yeddyurappa is already facing a spate of corruption cases and a CBI probe into illegal mining during his tenure as chief minister.