Here’s why the Chief Minister must order a probe.
The Vyalikaval House Building Cooperative Society Ltd offices are a shed! And it is a Rs 1.87 lakh crore scam. Housing cooperative societies are making a mockery of the law.
And the irony is that while successive chief ministers approach the Lokayuta for investigation at the very whiff of a scam, the question is, who is going to investigate the ‘Bengaluru Land Scam’ where even the Lokayukta is alleged to have violated rules?
Therefore, while Justice Patil tendering his resignation in the wake of allegations may be seen as the right thing to do for the state ombudsman, it is not an open and shut case. It has actually opened a Pandora’s Box.
Don’t the people of this state deserve to know who is responsible for this flagrant breach of the law and the biggest scam to occur in the state?
This, Mr Chief Minister, is the moment for you to order an inquiry.
Here’s why
* A person who unsuccessfully contested assembly elections on a BJP ticket in 2008 owns 173 sites in Vyalikaval House Building Cooperative Society Ltd.
* Politicians, judges and bureaucrats across parties own at least 10 sites each in this society. While a member said 10 sites is an under-estimation and claimed around 50 sites were picked by politicians in this society during 1995 to 2000 as the society was neck-deep in financial crisis.
* In hundreds of transactions there is no mention of details of DDs or cheques which is in gross violation of RBI rules in sale deeds. Also shows large-scale black money transaction.
* Over 7,000 members in the society registered in the society since 1964 but only some 3,000 members have got sites.
* There are over 500 housing societies in Bengaluru. But a majority of them are manipulated by officials and politicians as the society need their help for sanctions. Barely 25 percent of the society's original members get sites and the rest go to a powerful lobby
*There are easily over 10,000 litigations concerning housing society site allotment, say legal luminaries.
* The Bellary mining scam according to the Lokayukta report was Rs 16,068 crore. Consider this: There are over 500 societies and even if you take an average of each society distributing 2,000 sites, the total sites sold or transacted by housing societies is 5 lakh sites of different dimensions so far.
Take the cost of each site at an average price of Rs 2,500 per sqft and also an average plot site of 1,500 sqft which sums upto around 37 lakhs per plot as on today. For 5 lakh plots transacted so far, the money exchanged is a whopping Rs 1875000000000 (can't count the zeros? It is Rs 1.87 lakh crore). 12 times more than Bellary mining scam!
* This is taking into account, the lowest of low land prices in Bengaluru where the cost of land in Vyalikaval is Rs 12,000 per sqft and Rs 3,000 in the peripheral villages of city. By any stretch of imagination one can easily say that this is in fact the biggest scam in Karnataka so far.
* The cooperation department is one the most manipulated departments in the government. It maintains a low profile as its visibility is zero considering the fact that thousands of high profile people have benefited from this department.
Bengaluru housing societies a mega scam?
- September 21, 2011
- By B.R. Srikanth
The office of the Vyalikaval House Building Co-operative Society in Malleswaram is housed in a tin-roof shed
Politicos, judicial officers, senior bureaucrats and police officers would figure among gratuitous beneficiaries if the Lokayukta or any investigating agency probes murky deals of housing cooperative societies in Bengaluru and other cities of Karnataka: That is the conclusion of activists who complained to then Lokayukta Justice N. Santosh Hegde in 2009 and subsequently stumbled on acquisition of sites by his successor, Justice Shivaraj V Patil, in precincts carved by two such housing cooperative societies.
The activists said the deals run into several thousand crores with public figures and officers working hand-in-glove with directors of these societies to line their pockets while selling only a handful of sites to members while a lion’s share is sold at a premium to associate members or wealthy purchasers.
In many societies, the beneficiaries are described as “members” by directors to circumvent rules or duck queries from legitimate applicants. In some instances in the controversial Vyalikaval House Building Co-operative Society Ltd, members who possess the sale deed and possession certificate discovered later that site numbers allotted to them were either fictitious or sold to others!
In another housing cooperative society which figures in the complaint submitted to the Lokayukta, the directors violated all rules in appointment of contractors/developers to favour the kin of a former BJP minister and aide of former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa as well as a member of the current cabinet headed by Mr D.V. Sadananda Gowda.
“It is a myth that such cooperative societies are formed for the benefit of the poor and needy. We have dug up a case of one society with only 262 legitimate members awaiting allotment of sites while more than 18,500 associate members have signed on with the help of directors who demand the market price instead of subsidized rates for every available site. Most often, the directors have links with the kin of minister for cooperation or top bureaucrats. One of our complaints is against the sibling of a cooperation minister in the previous Congress government,” the activists told Deccan Chronicle.
With crores of rupees involved in each cooperative housing society, the minister for cooperation and registrar of cooperative societies drag their feet on complaints against office-bearers or suggest that members cough up extra for sites that ought to be distributed at subsidized rates.
In odd cases, the original owner of land has reneged on agreement with the directors to leave members with empty pockets and no piece of land to talk of, said the activists.
Who’s land is it anyway? While poor and middle class families pool every pie to own a site, those at the helm have been laughing all the way to the bank. Just who will get to the bottom of a scam that will put into shade the one that has rocked the “Republic of Bellary”?
Allotment or auction?
Documents available with this newspaper raise many questions on Justice Shivaraj V. Patil’s assertions that allegations on allotment of sites to himself and his wife were part of a “malicious campaign”.
For instance, the sale deed for site No. 252 acquired by Mrs Annapurna Patil (which she surrendered on September 14) in a layout carved by the Vyalikaval House Building Co-operative Society Ltd, describes her as “member of the vendor society” who has applied for “allotment of a site in the layout formed by the vendor society”.
Though the value of the site has been mentioned as Rs. 20,06,250, the sale deed does not cite details of the cheque or demand draft, a sine qua non, in such transactions.
The registration fee of Rs 2,25,100, however, has details of two demand drafts of Rs 54,550 and Rs 1,70,550 respectively, drawn on two different banks in Bengaluru.
Question: Was the site acquired through an application or auction? The sale deed for Justice Patil’s site in layout of the Karnataka State Judicial Department Employees House Building Cooperative Society, dated September 1, 1994, even lists his membership number as 1960. Such details are missing in the other sale deed.
Hot spots around Bengaluru
Vyalikaval House Building co-operative Society had proposed four housing projects in the city:
1. Laggere near Peenya
2. Nagavara, Kasaba Hobli
3. Binnamangala
4. Kempapura Agrahara
Hundreds of members of this society are still awaiting allotment of sites whereas some have approached courts for redressal. But VIPs have cornered bulk of the sites.