After ascent to CM, Shivakumar’s ties with Bengaluru real estate firms back in focus
Shivakumar’s CM tenure would be under scrutiny not just for his moves to help Congress buck “anti-incumbency” in 2028 elections, but also over various conflict of interest rows marking his political innings
D K Shivakumar during the swearing-in ceremony. In his remarkable career, the new Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar has often faced allegations of indulging in conflict of interest between expanding his personal real estate business and performing his duties as a public servant, lawmaker or minister.
Karnataka’s richest ever CM, Shivakumar — who had declared his assets worth Rs 1,413 crore for the 2023 Assembly polls, largely in real estate holdings — has been known for his association with top builders of Bengaluru.
While Shivakumar’s acquisition of prime land over the years and his tie-up with these builders for construction of large apartment complexes and tech parks in Bengaluru have led to allegations of cronyism against him, no official investigations have found corruption in his actions.
On Monday, five days after he was sworn in as the CM, Shivakumar was felicitated by the Bangalore chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers of India in the Vidhana Soudha.
Two weeks before he was elevated by the Congress leadership to replace Siddaramaiah as the CM on June 3, Shivakumar attended an event in Mumbai to mark the NSE listing of the Bagmane Group, a real estate firm whose founders have family ties with Shivakumar and ex-Karnataka CM late S M Krishna. “I have witnessed every step of Bagmane’s growth… This institution has achieved something that makes not just Karnataka but the entire nation proud,” Shivakumar said there.
In October 2019, following his release from prison after 50 days of incarceration in a ED money laundering case which was quashed by the Supreme Court in March 2024, Shivakumar had said: “One thing I would like to tell you – by birth I am an agriculturist, by profession I am a businessman, by choice I am an educationist, and by passion I am a politician.”
Now, Shivakumar’s tenure as the CM would be under scrutiny not just for his measures to help the Congress buck “anti-incumbency” in the 2028 elections, but also over various conflict of interest rows which have marked his political innings.
Benniganahalli case
In 2003, during his stint as the urban development minister (2002-2004) in the then Krishna-led Congress government, Shivakumar had bought 4.2 acre of industrial land for Rs 1.62 crore in survey number 50/2 of Benniganahalli village in Krishnarajapuram in east Bengaluru, when it was already notified for acquisition for creating a government housing layout to provide sites to people without houses by the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA), an agency then working under the urban development minister.
Shivakumar then got the land converted for residential use and signed a co-development agreement with the private builder Prudential Housing and Infrastructure Development Ltd, which was part of the Puravankara Projects, on May 10, 2004.
Following the Congress’s loss in the April-May 2004 elections, the Congress-JDS government was formed. Shivakumar attempted to get his land withdrawn from the BDA’s acquisition with multiple requests initially to the Congress-JDS government and later the B S Yediyurappa-led BJP government which came to power in 2008.
On May 13, 2010, the Yediyurappa government passed an order for denotification of the 4.2 acre land in favor of B K Srinivas, the original land owner who had died in 2004, from whom Shivakumar had bought it.
Subsequently, the private builder and Shivakumar signed a new co-development agreement on March 29, 2011 with a 73:27 ratio of share of the land and the flats to be developed by the Purvankara Projects subsidiary.
Several corruption complaints were filed against Shivakumar, Yediyurappa and others over the land deal in 2012 by activists. Shivakumar was named as accused number one and Yediyurappa as accused number two in these complaints.
A special court for corruption cases took cognizance of the case, but in December 2015 the Karnataka High Court quashed the proceedings due to lack of a sanction to prosecute the two leaders. The matter was taken to the Supreme Court by activists T J Abraham and Kabbalegowda, but the case was withdrawn in 2019.
Earlier this year, a veteran anti-corruption crusader S R Hiremath – who was instrumental in taking up a legal battle against the Ballari iron-ore mining mafia in 2008-13 which allegedly involved some BJP ministers – said that he has moved the apex court in the case.
Under his deal with the builder, Shivakumar got as many as 52 flats valued at Rs 52 crore (market value in 2018) at the Purva Mid Town apartments built in Benniganahalli, according to his 2018 election affidavit. His 2023 affidavit indicated he was still holding eight flats worth Rs 8.22 crore at Purva Mid Town.
Minerva Mill land case
In 2004, when Shivakumar was still the urban development minister, Davanam Constructions, a firm linked to Shivakumar as per his poll affidavits, bought 10 acres of prime land belonging to the defunct Minerva Mills of the National Textile Corporation in west Bengaluru in an auction.
The firm entered into agreements on October 10, 2004 and September 9, 2005 to sell the Minerva Mills land to Shivakumar and his family for an advance payment of Rs 42.54 crore.
On October 12, 2005, a joint development agreement was signed by Shivakumar and Davanam Constructions with the Bengaluru-based realty firm Sobha Developers to build an apartment complex and a mall on the land.
Subsequently, the land developer constructed a commercial mall, now called Global Malls, and an apartment complex, Sobha lndraprastha, on it and handed over the completed project to the land owners – the Shivakumar family during 2017-2020.
Shivakumar owns the majority stakes in Global Malls with a market value of over Rs 852 crore and three apartments in the Sobha apartment complex valued at Rs 2.16 crore, as per his 2023 affidavit. The mall facility is run by Lulu Malls, even as Shivakumar owns 6.84 lakh square feet or 90% of the mall property.
A major chunk of Shivakumar’s Rs 1,413 crore declared wealth accrued from the ownership of the Bengaluru mall, a deal with origins in his tenure as a minister. As per his 2023 affidavit, this wealth comprises Rs 970 crore as immovable assets and Rs 244 crore as moveable assets.
Shivakumar’s brother and ex-MP D K Suresh, who also has a Rs 176 crore stake in the mall property, declared Rs 593 crore assets for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Income Tax department sought Rs 103 crore as capital gains tax from Shivakumar for the Minerva Mills land deal for 2018-19, but its claim was overruled by an IT Appellate Tribunal on February 21, 2025.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) also conducted an investigation into transactions between Sobha Ltd with “D.K. Shivakumar (‘DKS’) and his family members/associates which was allegedly against the interest of the minority shareholders of Sobha” for three financial years from 2016 to 2019. A high powered advisory committee of SEBI recommended that the matter be settled on payment of Rs 2.92 crore by Sobha Ltd’s senior executives and was settled on August 22, 2022.
Other lands, cases
Shivakumar and his family also have properties in several real estate projects of the realty firm Salarpuria Properties Ltd on the basis of joint development agreements.
In the Salarpuria Sattva Divinity project in west Bengaluru – where the Shivakumar family purchased land on May 5, 2005 with the project being completed in 2020 – there are six flats worth Rs 18 crore held by Shivakumar as of 2023.
He also has financial ties with dozens of real estate firms and their promoters in Bengaluru, as per his affidavit.
With several land cases under litigation across Bengaluru, the new CM’s mandate to give precedence to public good over private profit would be tested. Many small site owners in the western outskirts of Bengaluru have gone to the Karnataka High Court to challenge parallel claims made for nearly 100 acre land housing their sites in Varthur Narasipura village near Magadi by big realtors. The petitioners found that their properties had been sold by the realty firm DLF Ltd in 2021 to a private firm Bengaluru Divinity LLP, which was created in 2017 in Telangana with Hyderabad residents Althuru Mahesh Reddy and his wife Radhika Althuru as the directors.
The Hyderabad firm, in turn, entered into an agreement on April 21, 2023 to sell the properties to the Bengaluru firm Bagmane Developers Pvt Ltd.
In September 2024, over 200 small site owners moved the high court to argue that the claim that the sale of the disputed properties to DLF Ltd had been registered in Delhi, instead of Bengaluru, on May 1, 1982, a public holiday, through the office of the divisional commissioner Delhi Stamps and Registration branch does not “create any right, title or interest in favor of DLF Ltd” under the Registration Act 1908. The high court has directed status quo on the land ownership for the disputed properties.
Protests over land acquisition
Months before he took over as the CM, Shivakumar faced protests by farmers,who were rallied by the Opposition JDS against a proposed Rs 20,000 crore township planned over 9,000 acres at Bidadi in Shivakumar’s Bengaluru South home district.
The project was initially proposed by the JDS when it was in power in 2007 but was reportedly dropped following opposition from farmer groups.
“They claim 3,000-4,000 acres out of 9,000 acres are government-owned, when in reality only 700 acres belongs to the government. These figures are being used to justify the township and loot farmers’ land,” JDS leader and Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy recently alleged.
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