Representative image of police.
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Seven persons from a single family, living in Australia, USA, Mumbai, Mangaluru and Bengaluru for several years, have got their khata done illegally for the government lands in Chikkamagaluru district, that too, without submitting a single application.
In a single case, the Assistant Commissioner has scrapped the illegal sanctioning of 32 acres of land and criminal cases have been registered against the erring officials.
The khata was issued to the lands in the name of private persons, without submission of applications under form 50, 53 and 57, without being mentioned in Akrama-Sakrama proceedings, without the cultivation chit and without the application being produced before the Bagar Hukum committee.
32 acres of vacant land of survey number 21 in Hadivoni village in Baluru hobli of Mudigere taluk was sanctioned to Hubrat Vaz Nayak, Anthony J D Pinto, Hero A M L, Josephine Suneethi Kamath, Jyothsna Kasargod, Sheela Albuquerque and Sheril D'Souza, in 2021.
"Certain rules are required to be followed inorder to sanction the land. Information regarding the number of years of cultivation by the applying farmer, any other lands sanctioned to the family, need to be checked by the village accountant and revenue inspection. The application should be produced by the Tahsildar before the bagar hukum committee headed by the MLA. The cultivation chit should be distributed after obtaining the prescribed fee. But the officials have not followed any rules in the case. Random cultivation chits and other paper documents from other files have been uploaded to the website to issue the khata directly," the current Tahsildar Y Tippeswamy has stated in his complaint submitted to the police.
Apart from the said case, many other government lands have been registered in the name of private persons in hundreds of other cases.
In the above said case, it has been mentioned that a person called Jerald D'Souza is cultivating in the land and all seven holders of khata are his relatives. Three of them are living in the USA, one in Australia, one in Mumbai, another one in Bengaluru and the other in Mangaluru.
Cases are being registered against those who have got the lands sanctioned illegally.
Influential try to stop the case
On the other hand, a special team of 15 Tahsildars has completed the investigation regarding the illegal sanctioning of land in Mudigere and Kadur taluks. An investigation report has been submitted to the government.
As per the primary information, more than six thousand acres of government land has been illegally sanctioned.
It is known that the influential persons have been pressuring the government to shelve the case. In this connection, they have met the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister and have pressured them to stop the investigation.
The local citizens have urged Revenue Minister Krishna Bhairegowda and Revenue department Principal Secretary Rajender Kumar Kataria not to step back
Criminal cases filed against Tahsildars
On the allegation of creating khata for government lands illegally, police have arrested Revenue Inspector N N Girish and Village Accountant Nethravathi.
Criminal cases have also been filed against Tahsildar H M Ramesh who is awaiting posting and Hosadurga Tahsildar Palayya who was a Shirastedar in Mudigere.