Bengaluru (TIP)- The Karnataka Lokayukta on Friday filed a first information report (FIR) against chief minister Siddaramaiah, his wife BM Parvathi and brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy in connection with a land allotment case, compounding the problems for the embattled Congress leader who swept to power last year on an anti-corruption campaign.
The case involves allegations of irregularities in land allotted to Siddaramaiah’s wife, Parvathi, by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (Muda). It came on a day Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge rallied behind Siddaramaiah amid mounting calls for the CM’s ouster. “The FIR was filed following a direction to the Lokayukta by the special court in Bengaluru,” said TJ Udesh, superintendent of Lokayukta Police in Mysuru, confirming the FIR, a copy of which is with HT. Siddaramaiah was named as the primary accused, followed by his wife Parvathi as the second accused, and Mallikarjuna Swamy as the third. Devaraju, who sold the land to Swamy, was listed as the fourth accused, along with “others”. The FIR invoked Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), Section 166 (disobeying the law with intent to cause injury), Section 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property), Section 406 (criminal breach of trust), and Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code. It also included charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, and the Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Act. Siddaramaiah is the second sitting chief minister of Karnataka to face an FIR.
The Karnataka Lokayukta, founded in 1984, serves as the watchdog to address corruption and public complaints against state officials. Initially seen as a powerful entity in tackling corruption, its authority to investigate was taken away in 2016 and given to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), an agency controlled by the CM’s office. However, in 2022, the Karnataka high court disbanded the ACB and reinstated the Lokayukta’s authority, transferring all active cases back to it.
The CM denied any wrongdoing and dismissed calls for his resignation, attributing the case to political moves orchestrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “Why should I tender my resignation? You have to tender a resignation only if you have done something wrong, right? When I have not done anything wrong,” he said, addressing reporters at Mysuru airport. Kharge and the Congress rallied behind him. “Their [BJP’s] main aim is to defame the Congress. there is no question of him resigning,” Kharge said.
The Opposition in the state criticised his refusal to resign. “If Siddaramaiah continues to argue, why should I resign even after all this?, it would render his 40 years of political life meaningless. I believe he wouldn’t want to sink further in the eyes of the people, losing the remaining respect he has,” said senior BJP leader R Ashoka.
The controversy revolves around land acquisition and compensation in Mysuru’s Devanur 3rd stage layout. The disputed land is a 3.16 acre plot, which Siddaramaiah says was gifted to Parvathi by Mallikarjuna, in 1998.
In 2014, when Siddaramaiah was CM, Parvathi applied for compensation for the land after Muda allegedly took over the land for development without her permission. In 2017, Muda agreed to compensate her, and she was given 14 residential plots amounting to a total of 38,284 square feet in the prime Vijayanagar 3rd and 4th stage layouts.
The complainants argued that these 14 plots – in the heart of Karnataka’s second-largest city – were far more valuable than the original land, under Muda’s 50:50 scheme. After the controversy came to light, Siddaramiah offered to return the 14 plots if his wife was given ?62 crore as compensation.
The Muda 50:50 scheme, announced in 2016, entailed offering 50% of the developed sites as compensation to the original land owners. The controversial scheme was scrapped in 2023.
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