Karnataka Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani on Monday joined the growing list of politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to face a police probe into land grab charges.
Police have to complete the probe and submit their findings by November 16, Lokayukta (ombudsman) special court judge N.K. Sudhindra Rao ordered on Monday as the judiciary's relentless scrutiny of those in power continued.
The order for a police probe against Nirani comes six days ahead of senior BJP leader L.K. Advani's Jan Chetna Yatra, a roadshow to mobilise people against corruption, enters Karnataka.
Rao may be heading towards a record in Karnataka on the number of politicians against whom he has ordered the probe.
He has already set one by sending to jail BJP's first chief minister in south India B.S. Yeddyurappa, who also became the first former Karnataka chief minister to spend time behind bars in corruption cases.
Rao is an additional sessions judge who functions as the Lokayukta special court for speedy disposal of corruption cases.
Rao ordered the probe against Nirani on a complaint by a builder, Alam Pasha, who alleged that the industries minister had freed from official control government land, a process called denotification, on Bangalore outskirts for monetary gain.
Nirani is accused of denotifying 20 acres near Devanahalli and seven acres at Dobbaspet, which had been acquired by the government-run Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB).
Land costs at Devanahalli, about 35 km north of the city centre, have gone through the roof in recent years as the new Bangalore International airport has come up in the area.
Dobbaspet is an old industrial area where too land costs are going up as it is only 20 km further north from the international airport.
Pasha alleged that Nirani abused his office to get the 27 acres denotified, which meant the land went back to the original owners who in turn sold it at a huge rate and the industries minister benefited monetarily from this deal.
Pasha did not mention the money that Nirani allegedly made from this denotification process.
Nirani is the second BJP minister in the D.V. Sadananda Gowda cabinet to face a police probe into land grab.
On October 20, Rao had ordered police attached to Lokayutka to investigate charges against Home Minister R. Ashoka. He is accused of getting about half an acre of land denotified in north Bangalore and acquiring it at less than market rate because of his clout as a minister.
The next day, the Lokayukta police registered an FIR (first information report), which marks formal beginning of the probe, against Ashok.
Yeddyurappa is the number four accused in the FIR as the denotification took place in 2009 when he was the chief minister.
The probe against Nirani will formally begin once the police register the FIR, which will be done in a day or two.
Nirani joins Ashoka, Yeddyurappa and two former ministers, Katta Subramanaya Naidu and S.N. Krishnaiah Shetty, battling land grab or illegal land deal charges.
Yeddyurappa, Naidu and Shetty are in judicial custody. Naidu, however, has been allowed to go to Mumbai for treatment of cancer.
Another former BJP minister mining baron G. Janardhana Reddy is in Chanchagalaguda jail in Hyderabad for illegal mining in Andhra Pradesh.