Legal eagles, land sharks tango

Legal eagles, land sharks tango
Deccan Herald

The interim report of the Joint House Committee headed by A T Ramaswamy, looking into cases of land-grabbing in and around Bangalore Urban district, has unravelled a hitherto unheard of way being used by the land mafia to gobble up valuable government properties...

You might have often heard about the politician-bureaucrat nexus in hoodwinking the public. But ever heard of an advocate-officialdom nexus in facilitating the grabbing of government land?

The interim report of the Joint House Committee headed by A T Ramaswamy, looking into cases of land-grabbing in and around Bangalore Urban district, has unravelled a hitherto unheard of way being used by the land mafia to gobble up valuable government properties.

Generally, government agencies dealing in land and housing issues, hold on to a few vacant plots treating them as capital assets. These plots also draw the attention of land-grabbers who lose no opportunity in encroaching them. Once the agencies move in to reclaim their lands, the land-grabbers move the courts and manage to obtain stay against them.

According to the report, it’s in this stage that the officialdom-advocate nexus steps in. Their modus operandi is simple: Present false and incomplete information to the court and ensure that the stay on the disputed property continues. This serves two purposes: the encroacher continues to hold the property and the advocate representing the case for the government agency concerned keeps getting his fee. For such advocates, the fee has become “a kind of pension scheme”, as they get it for years on end — until the case is disposed of which is a rarity. “The advocates representing government agencies hardly put any effort to get the stay on the disputed property vacated,” the report, which has pegged the total land encroached at 13,614.37 acres worth Rs 27, 377.75 crore, notes in bold letters.

The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, Bangalore Development Authority, Karnataka Housing Board and Karnataka Industrial Development Board and other government agencies are notorious for such underhand dealings. Result: Land-grabbers have been successful in encroaching prime land in the district.

These government agencies usually appoint small-time lawyers without any conditions. “This should be done away with... Only reputed advocates or former advocates-general should be appointed to fight cases regarding land disputes, even if their fee is a bit more,” the interim report says.

This apart, the JHC has found out that there are 108 illegal residential layouts including those developed by private builders and various housing cooperative societies, within the BDA jurisdiction. There are plenty of other illegal layouts beyond BDA limits. Though the BDA has not given permission, the local urban bodies (CMCs) have sanctioned building plans on these layouts, thus “exposing the involvement of officials”.

There is another category of unauthorised layouts which are developed on agriculture land without converting the land use. In fact, the BDA itself is a culprit. Its Banashankari III stage layout and Konanakunte layout in Bangalore South have been developed.

The report makes special mention of six such illegal layouts developed by housing societies – Karnataka State Judicial Department HC Employees’ House Building Society, the Vyalikaval House Building Cooperative Society, Ministry of Communication Employees’ House Building Cooperative Society, the Shantinagar House Building Cooperative Society, Viswabharathi House Building Cooperative Society (recently recovered by BDA) and Aircraft Employees’ Cooperative Society.

STREET LEGAL

*Lawyers hardly try to get the stay vacated

*They deliberately drag cases to help land mafia

*Provide false and incomplete information

*Their fee is in effect a ‘pension scheme’

*BMP, BDA, KIADB and KHB in the dock