MUDA land scam: Lokayukta summons Siddaramaiah for questioning on Nov 6

Mysuru: The Lokayukta police have summoned Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for questioning on November 6 in connection with the MUDA site allotment case. Earlier, on October 25, the police questioned his wife, Parvathi B M, who is also an accused in the case. "We asked him to appear on Wednesday morning," a senior Lokayukta official told PTI.

The Chief Minister is accused of irregularities in allocating 14 sites to his wife by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). Responding to the summons from the Lokayukta police, Siddaramaiah told reporters in Haveri district, “I will go...”

Siddaramaiah, his wife, brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy, and Devaraju—who sold land to Swamy, which he then gifted to Parvathi—are all named in the FIR filed by the Lokayukta police in Mysuru on September 27. Swamy and Devaraju have also appeared before the Lokayukta police.

Siddaramaiah, on October 24, submitted an appeal to the High Court’s division bench, contesting a single judge’s decision on the MUDA site allotment case, which had previously dealt him a legal setback. Justice M. Nagaprasanna’s bench had rejected Siddaramaiah’s petition on September 24, which challenged Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot’s sanction for an investigation, finding that the governor’s order showed no “lack of application of mind.”

Siddaramaiah had questioned the legality of Gehlot’s approval for the probe into alleged irregularities in the allocation of 14 MUDA sites in a prime location. Following the High Court’s ruling, a Special Court promptly ordered a Lokayukta investigation and instructed that the report be submitted by December 24. The Special Court, designated for cases involving former and elected MPs/MLAs, issued the order based on a complaint filed by RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna.

Meanwhile, Parvathi requested MUDA to cancel the allotment of her 14 sites, a request that MUDA accepted. On September 30, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed an enforcement case information report (ECIR), initiating action against the Chief Minister and others, referencing the Lokayukta FIR.

The MUDA site allotment case involves allegations that 14 compensatory plots were allotted to Siddaramaiah’s wife in an upscale area of Mysuru (Vijayanagar Layout 3rd and 4th stages), valued higher than the location of her land previously "acquired" by MUDA. MUDA had allotted these plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 scheme in exchange for 3.16 acres of her land, where it developed a residential layout.

The controversial scheme allowed MUDA to allot 50 per cent of developed land to those who lost land in exchange for undeveloped land acquired for residential development. It is alleged that Parvathi did not hold legal title to the 3.16 acres in survey number 464, located in Kasare village, Kasaba hobli of Mysuru taluk.