Mysore/Mysuru: The Ashokapuram Police have registered a criminal case against six persons, including the previous Special Land Acquisition Officer of MUDA and an advocate, on charges of cheating the original land owner of Rs. 98.33 lakh whose land was acquired by MUDA.

The case has been registered following a complaint by one  M. Mahadevaswamy, a resident of Lalitadrinagar.

Details

Chikkathayamma and her sons, the owners of a land at Lalitadripura, had leased out their land to Kempamma, the mother of the complainant Mahadevaswamy on Dec. 7, 1968. But as Chikkathayamma could not return the money to Kempamma after the expiry of the lease period, she (Chikkathayamma) sold the landed property to Kempamma on Dec. 15, 1969, when in the Sale Deed, the survey number of the property was wrongly mentioned by oversight as No. 29 instead of No. 26. Later, when the mistake was discovered in the document, the survey number was corrected as No. 26 on Apr. 10, 1974.

Years later, MUDA acquired the said land for formation of a Layout, without issuing any notice to the owner Kempamma nor her son Mahadevaswamy, regarding payment of compensation. Subsequently, MUDA, without the knowledge of the original land owners, deposited the compensation amount in the Court in 2005.

In the meantime, MUDA’s previous Special Land Acquisition Officer filed an application seeking release of the deposited money to be used for re-maintenance of the said land, to which Mahadevaswamy filed an objection suit.

But not caring for the objection suit, the previous MUDA Special Land Acquisition Officer Harshavardhan has illegally paid compensation to the other accused in the case, even though they are not the owners of the said land and as such are not entitled for any compensation.

The complaint further said that an advocate too was in cahoots with the accused as he presented wrong information to the Court, though he knew about the fraud.

Based on the complaint, the Police have registered case against six persons under Sections 416, 419, 420 and 406 of IPC.