Bangalore, Jan 2 (IANS) The Karnataka Lokayukta (ombudsman) special court here Monday ordered an inquiry into the allegedly illegal freeing of government land on the city’s outskirts by former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy in 2007.
Admitting the private complaint filed by Madhuswamy, trial court judge N.K. Sudhindra Rao directed the ombudsman’s police to investigate the alleged illegalities under section 156/3 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and submit a report by Feb 6.
The complainant alleged that Kumaraswamy freed 3.8 acres of land from state control at Thanisandra village after it was acquired by the state-run Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for forming residential sites near Arkavathy lake in the city’s north-western suburb.
Kumaraswamy, younger son of former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and Lok Sabha member from Ramanagara, was chief minister of the first coalition government in the state between Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for 20 months from February 2006 to October 2007.
The complainant also named former minister C. Chennigappa as co-accused and sought action under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the duo.
This is the second land scam Kumaraswamy is facing after he was accused of illegally allotting a huge land to a private housing cooperative society near the city by an advocate (Vinod Kumar) through a complaint Aug 8.
The Karnataka High Court, however, quashed the criminal proceedings by the trial court in the second case Oct 21 against Kumaraswamy and his wife Anita, a lawmaker, who was rewarded with a residential site by the society.
Kumaraswamy is also facing two graft cases in the multi-crore mining scam that rocked the state in 2011 and was named by then ombudsman Justice (retired) Santosh N Hegde in the final investigation report on illegal mining that was submitted to the state government July 27, 2011.
