‘Investors in your Cabinet?’ Deve Gowda’s jab over Bangalore-Mysore link sites

Days after the Karnataka Cabinet gave Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) two months to allot sites to farmers affected by the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP), former prime minister H D Deve Gowda Monday accused the state government of “subverting the rule of law”.

In an open letter to Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, Deve Gowda also accused the government of defying Supreme Court rulings and said that a previous proposal to allot sites to those who lost land was rejected. Responding to the letter, Shivakumar said, “Whatever we do, we do it within the confines of law.

We took legal opinion. We are reexamining everything. We will do as per law," he said. Gowda pointed out the state government's stance in the Karnataka High Court. "In March 2023, in a batch of writ petitions filed before the High Court, the government placed on record its rejection of the representation made by NICE for allotting sites to land losers on the ground that sites cannot be formed in lands acquired for road and infrastructure under Framework Agreement (FWA).

In January of this year, the High Court categorically held that compensation cannot be by way of sites formed at interchanges or on lands handed over for roads in contravention of FWA," he said. Gowda noted that the government planned to allot sites in villages that fell within the road/road infrastructure component of the project.

"When were the sites which are to be allotted formed? Who granted approval for the formation of these sites?" he asked. Court rulings, he said, have unequivocally held that the project was “a fraud" and "the project has not done any public good or public purpose and has only served the private interests of the project proponents." Noting that the court has called for a forensic audit of the company's accounts, he said there were doubts whether such an exercise would ever be taken up.

This was since "the state itself is an accomplice in allowing the project proponents to earn huge profits illegally by inter alia capitalising its assets," Gowda alleged. Gowda asked whether the real beneficiaries of allotted sites were land losers or NICE and its investors.

"Are the investors in your Cabinet, Mr Chief Minister? The state wants to know," he said in the letter. Earlier this month, the Cabinet decided to allot sites to 1,453 farmers within two months. The government said the decision followed a recent Supreme Court order that allowed the state government to decide on the issue.

The government said 574 sites were already available for distribution, and NICE would develop the remaining sites.