In eye of storm, Siddaramaiah family among many MUDA land ‘scam’ beneficiaries across party lines

The 14 housing plots allotted to the CM’s wife in the prime Vijayanagar area of Mysuru were officially valued at over Rs 8.33 crore in 2023, compared to Rs 3.5 crore as per current government guidance value for her 3.16-acre land that was acquired by MUDA.

When the allegations of corruption emerged in July, Siddaramaiah suggested the family would give up the 14 plots if MUDA paid Rs 62 crore as compensation for the illegal acquisition of 3.16 acres or 1.48 lakh sq ft of land.

A timeline of the case

“My land allotment case is not a scandal. Our land was illegally taken away by MUDA. We have not sought land under the 50:50 scheme. You must understand the difference between land acquired legally and illegally taken over by MUDA. They have illegally taken over the land and given alternate sites as compensation,” Siddaramaiah said in defence of the deal.

In 2014, when Siddaramaiah was the CM for the first time, his wife reportedly approached MUDA with a request for alternative sites in lieu of the agency’s acquisition of her land. The request was reportedly pending with MUDA until the formulation of the controversial 50:50 alternative land allocation scheme during BJP rule in 2020, and an allotment under the scheme was cleared on December 30, 2021.

MUDA’s 50:50 scheme

The second reason for suspicion is that the 50:50 land allotment scheme started in 2020 for allotting prime MUDA land in exchange for land “illegally” acquired by the authority has been called out by state officials as being contrary to land compensation rules and that it did not have the sanction of the state urban development department.

Despite multiple letters from the Mysuru deputy commissioner, through the tenures of the BJP government and the subsequent Congress regime (which came to power in May 2023), calling out the 50:50 alternative land compensation scheme for misuse and illegality, the Congress government scrapped the scheme only in October 2023.

The Congress government also did not move to retrospectively cancel 1,328 allotments made under the 50:50 scheme, with the beneficiaries cutting across political parties and prominent religious or educational institutions.

There are allegations that people who did not lose land in Mysuru were also given high-value alternative sites after the scheme began being abused by realtors and politicians.

After a resolution in October 2020, the alternative site scheme was drafted on November 20, 2020, by MUDA members including its chairman and commissioner for distributing sites to land losers in a 50:50 ratio—50% of a developed area in exchange for 50% of the land acquired by MUDA.

MUDA was warned against implementing the scheme on May 4, 2021, and March 14, 2023, by the urban development department but did not stop the scheme.

“The deputy commissioner of Mysuru has written 17 letters to MUDA from 08.02.2023 to 09.11.2023 and finally to the Urban Development Authority, Government of Karnataka on 27.11.2023 on the 50:50 ratio scam and necessity for a probe against the MUDA Commissioner. Despite this, the commissioner of MUDA has allotted thousands of sites without fear of law,” farmer rights activist Kurubara Shanthkumar said in a letter to the Governor on July 5.

1,328 sites allotted by MUDA under scheme

According to Urban Development Minister Byrathi Suresh, 1,328 alternative sites had been given as compensation under the 50:50 scheme since its inception. There were 125 allotments in the 50:50 scheme in the same Vijayanagar area where the CM’s wife received an allotment, he said.

Since 2020, 909 sites had been given on the 50:50 basis, around 310 plots as incentives and 109 as alternative land in the same areas by MUDA.

The Congress minister is reported to have allowed the 50:50 scheme to continue despite multiple objections from state officials through 2023. “There is a lot of land that has been allotted as alternative sites to religious and educational institutions which I will not comment about, since it is for good purposes. Similarly, alternative land has been given to the CM’s wife,” the minister said on July 26.

Suresh has claimed that for many years, MUDA would not get clearances from the urban development department as mandated for its compensation schemes.

MUDA is a body created under the Urban Development Authority Act of 1987 and the 50:50 alternative land allotment scheme was introduced in 2020 under the Karnataka Urban Development Authorities (Disposal of Plots in Lieu of Compensation for Land Acquisition) Rules 1991, instead of a land-for-land scheme that existed then, a legal expert said.

The resolution passed by MUDA on October 13, 2020, for granting land in the 50:50 ratio is an “illegal resolution” under Section 67 of the Karnataka Urban Development Authorities Act 1987, urban development officials have stated, leading to its cancellation on October 27, 2023.

Beneficiaries across parties

The MUDA resolutions of 2020, which facilitated the 50:50 land compensation scheme, were approved at meetings attended by local Mysuru legislators cutting across party lines, such as

G T Deve Gowda of the JD(S) and S A Ramdas of the BJP, who were the members of MUDA.

“Rajeev, a BJP man, was the chairman of MUDA and all party members were part of it, and a resolution was passed that a mistake was committed. The BJP was in power in the state,” Siddaramaiah said of a 2021 resolution to allot alternate land to his wife.

According to official records released by the Urban Development Department on MUDA land allotments made under the controversial scheme, JD(S) MLA G T Deve Gowda received MUDA sites in exchange for 2.25-acre and 1-acre lands in Iranagar and Madagalli, respectively. JD(S) MLA Sa Ra Mahesh received MUDA sites in exchange for 0.09 acres in Dattagalli village and 2.11 acres in Bogadi village. Another JD(S) legislator from Mysuru, C N Manjegowda, received alternative sites in exchange for one acre of land in the Hinkal, 2.25 acres in Devanur, and 4.15 acres in Kesare villages.

BJP legislator H Vishwanath received MUDA sites in exchange for 0.05 acre in Belavath village, while BJP leader U S Shekhar received sites in compensation for 1.26 acres acquired in Nachenahalli village.

Among the other beneficiaries, according to Byrathi Suresh, are the prestigious Lingayat educational institution JSS, which received sites in exchange for 4.34 acres in Kuppalur, and the Vokkaliga trust known as BGS, which received sites for 0.11 acre in Malavadi. The Lingayats and Vokkaligas are the two most dominant communities in Karnataka.

State officials have pointed out that the Bangalore Development Authority and other city development authorities have established that alternative plots cannot be provided to land losers in alternative developed locations but only where they lost land.

They have also indicated that under the Right and Fair Compensation Transparency in Land Acquisition Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act 2013, all land losers are eligible for good and fair compensation and the 50:50 ratio scheme was meant to benefit only a few individuals.

Controversial scheme not questioned

MUDA’s 50:50 land allotment scheme itself has not been called into question in the private complaints of corruption sought to be prosecuted by three anti-corruption activists—T J Abraham, Snehamayi Krishna and Pradeep Kumar—who has obtained the Governor’s sanction to file corruption cases against Siddaramaiah.

The activists have looked only at alleged illegalities in the mode of acquisition of 3.16 acres of land in 2004 by the CM’s brother-in-law B M Mallikarjun and its subsequent change of nature from agricultural to non-agricultural land as an illegality, before the land was gifted to his sister and the CM’s wife B M Parvathi in October 2010.

They argue that MUDA could not have illegally acquired the 3.16 acres of land for which the CM’s wife was compensated, since the land already reportedly belonged to MUDA when it was bought by Mallikarjun in 2004.

A judicial commission headed by retired Karnataka High Court judge P N Desai, constituted on July 14, and a panel headed by IAS officer Venkatachalapathy, have been tasked by the Congress government with finding all illegalities that have occurred under the 50:50 land allotment scheme since it started in 2020 during the BJP rule.

Siddaramaiah—who has had a largely untainted political career despite an attempt by the BJP and JD(S) during his previous tenure to link him to the denotification of nearly 541 acres of land in Bengaluru acquired for the BDA’s Arkavathy Layout—has claimed that the current allegations made by the BJP and the JD(S) are intended to “tarnish” his political image.

When the controversies broke out ahead of a state legislature session on July 15, the CM appeared isolated and turned defensive—demanding Rs 62-crore compensation for the land allegedly lost by his wife and claiming he was being targeted for belonging to a backward class community.

With the Congress backing him in recent weeks, Siddaramaiah has vowed not to “budge or bow” to the allegations but to fight them legally.

Timeline

1996-97: Mysore Development Authority acquires a 3.16 acre of land in Kesare village of Mysuru by paying a compensation of Rs 3.7 lakh to a local farmer.

1998: Land is dropped from land acquisition.

2004: Siddaramaiah’s brother-in-law Mallikarjun buys the 3.16-acre land from the son of the original owner, who had died.

2010: The 3.16-acre land is gifted to Parvathy B M, wife of Siddaramaiah.

2013: Siddaramaiah’s poll affidavit makes no mention of this land. He says it was an “oversight”.

2011- 2014: The land is allegedly acquired illegally by MUDA.

2014: Siddaramaiah’s wife requests MUDA to provide a plot in place of the lost land.

2018: His wife’s 3.16-acre land is listed in Siddaramaiah’s poll affidavit, with a value of Rs 25 lakh.

2021: MUDA offers 14 plots under the 50:50 scheme to Siddaramaiah’s wife.

2023: The CM’s poll affidavit shows 14 plots with his wife, received in lieu of village land, with a value of Rs 8.33 crore.

2024: The Opposition says land exchange was “illegal”; Siddaramaiah says he is ready to return plots in return for Rs 62 crore in compensation.