Everyone in the Telugu States recall the name of Gummanur Jayaram when someone mentions Benz Car Minister. There may be many ministers owning Benz Cars, but Jayaram has occupied the top spot in terms of recall whenever the name ‘Benz’ is uttered.
This is not a small issue. This is related to land grabbing of 200 acres of land. It is alleged that a Bengaluru-based real estate company had acquired 202 acres of land in the form of illegal transactions. There are clear records about change of ownership rights in the Pattadar passbooks and a complaint had also been filed against minister Jayaram by the Karnataka police for illegal transactions and manipulation of land records.
What’s this entire land grabbing about?
Ittina is a real estate group amongst nine other companies founded in Bengaluru thirty years ago. They are also into hotel management, construction activities apart from real estate. As part of this, a company named ‘Ittina Plantation’ was established on April 1, 1993. The directors of this company are I Mahabaleswarappa and Manjunath. After the death of Mahabaleswarappa, his sons Ittina Mona and Ittina Manu joined the company as directors on August 1, 2008. Manjunath left the company by resigning from the post of director on March 31, 2009. Since then, he completely lost touch with the affairs of the company.
The Hon’ble Minister enters into the scene
A few months ago, on March 2, 2020, the minister interfered in the revenue department’s land records. The land belonging to Ittina company, were transferred in the name of Manjunath who had resigned a decade ago and then the minister created documents of land ownership in his name. Usually, the ordinary person had to run around revenue offices for months in order to make changes in the ownership of lands. However, it is alleged that the minister used his influence for the change of names to be done within a few days.
Later, he prepared documents as if he purchased these lands from Manjunath and got the ownership changed in the name of his family members and benamis. The minister has also shown his legal astuteness while changing the ownership of the lands.
Documents were prepared as purchasing 92.94 acres of land in the names of his wife Renuka with 30.83 acres, in the name of Uma Devi, the wife of his first brother with 30.53 acres, in the name of Triveni, wife of second brother with 31.58 acres. There were documents that showed 115 acres of land was purchased on the same day (March 2, 2020).
Among them, there were 12.76 acres of lands against the name of K Sridevi, 48.07 acres of land in the name of K Ananta Padmanabha Rao, 46.48 acres in the name of Lingappa Shashikala, 4 acres in the name of Narsa Reddy. All the above persons are accused of being minister’s benamis.
Now, the minister facing allegations that he created a fake resolution of the Board, made a minor error. As per the resolution of the Board (let us keep aside whether the resolution was genuine or fake) only 142 acres should be sold. But the records show that a total of 202 acres were sold. After this, revenue records had ownership documents in the name of minister Jayaram’s wife Renuka, brother Narayanswamy’s wife Triveni, brother Srinivasulu’s wife Uma Devi.
Whenever land transactions are done there is a provision which states that no payment in the excess of Rs. 2 lakh can be made in cash. But in the document purchased by minister’s wife Renuka, it showed Rs. 52,42,000 has been paid in cash. Though there are clear regulations of the Income Tax department, it is shown that Rs 1.63 Crore was transferred as cash.
Complaint to police in Karnataka
The purchase documents were prepared on March 2, 2020, and the original owners of these lands woke up in May. After realising what had happened, they lodged a complaint at the Koramangala police station in Karnataka alleging that their lands were encroached by minister Jayaram and his family members. They have also clearly mentioned the name of the minister’s wife Renuka in the complaint. There is also a mention about Manjunath who had earlier resigned as a director of the company alleging that he was harassed using power.
In the meantime, there were reports about an attempt to take loans by mortgaging the lands in Kurnool District Cooperative Bank. With this the Ittina Company wrote a letter to the Chief Executive Officer of the bank asking him to reject the loan application to the family members of the minister.
In addition, the Koramangala police too in their letter to the bank CEO directed not to sanction loan to the family members of the minister.
Minister’s income details, another joke?
The income tax filings made by minister Jayaram to the Income Tax department is a big joke. The minister said that in 2015-16 his income was Rs. 3,92,958. In the year 2016-17 it was Rs. 4,22,500 and in the year 2017-18 his income was shown as Rs. 1,44,000.
Minister Ji, what do you say now?
The documentary evidence has come out pertaining to the allegations that minister Gummanuru Jayaram had diverted lands in the name of his family members.
What will Minister Jayaram say now? We have to see what action chief minister YS Jagan will take on the minister over this land grabbing episode.
