Just a day before taking oath as the 21st Chief Minister of the state, Mr Jagadish Shettar faced allegation of ‘ordering’ a special land acquisition officer to denotify 178 acres of land which was under acquisition for a Mega Market for farmers. The complaint was filed by one Mr Chetan S.M., a journalism student and working president of Bharat Vidyarthi Kriya Samithi.
The complainant alleged that the market project was initiated in 2000 and final notification to acquire 365 acres of land in Dasanapura hobli was issued in 2001 with `13 crore earmarked to be paid out as compensation. The complainant claimed that of the 365 acres, 178 acres was private land and, after the final notification, the file pertaining to the project gathered dust and nothing happened till 2006.
“Mr Jagadish Shettar became Revenue minister in 2006 during JD(S)-BJP coalition government. At that time, special land acquisition officer of Revenue Department, Mr Nagaraj, denotified the entire 178 acres of private land through a single order. In the first place, it is a blatant violation for any officer, other than the Chief Minister in consultation with his cabinet, to denotify the land. Besides, since this denotification was done by Revenue department, the then Revenue minister’s involvement is certain”, the complainant stated.
The Lokayukta special court pulled up the complainant for filing the complaint in a hurried manner with incomplete documents. The complainant had no documents to establish that the illegal denotification by the SLAO was based on Mr Shettar’s directions. However, the complainant claimed that being the Revenue minister, Mr Shettar himself had ordered for denotification of the land. The complainant also said that the Revenue department has not been replying to RTI queries filed one-and-a-half months ago.
“After denotification of the land, many real estate players have built layouts in the said land. The Mega Market project, on the other hand, remained on paper and nothing happened in the last 12 years,’’ the complainant said. The Lokayukta special court directed the complainant to place on record either the entire documents pertaining to the denotification or to produce the RTI applications filed. The court posted further hearing to July 21.