"Billions of rupees worth of 'benami' lands are owned by several people in Karnataka. I will set apart Rs.5 crore in the coming budget to reward with cash those who inform the government about the 'benami' land," Yeddyurappa told a meeting of party legislators here.
"The government will confiscate those lands and the reward money quantum will be determined based on the present market price of those lands," Yeddyurappa said.
The chief minister claimed that those in power before him - a reference to Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) governments - had acquired huge tracts of land but they were not in their names.
The Law Commission of India defines 'benami' land or 'benami transaction' as 'purchase or holding of properties in the name of another'. This custom has been recognised by Indian courts for a long time. Literally, the word 'benami' means 'without name'.
The essential legal characteristic of these transactions is that there is no intention to benefit the person in whose name the transaction is made.
Yeddyurappa said the name of the informant would be not be revealed.
The chief minister again attacked Governor H.R. Bhardwaj for sanctioning his prosecution over charges of favouring his kin with prime land in and around Bangalore and 'denotifying' large tracts of land that were allegedly bought at rates hugely less than the market rate by people who invested in his relatives' business ventures.
Five complaints claiming that Yeddyurappa and his relatives had made over Rs.189 crore from various land allotments and also caused a loss of Rs.465 crore to the government have been filed by two advocates after Bhardwaj gave sanction to them Jan 21.
Charging that Bhardwaj had acted on the instigation of the Congress and JD-S, Yeddyurappa insisted that the governor was hostile to the BJP government from the day he assumed office. Bhardwaj became governor in June 2009.
Yeddyurappa said he will bring out a booklet in English and Hindi on land allotment and 'denotification' during the chief ministership of H.D. Deve Gowda (Janata Dal-Secular), S.M. Krishna, N. Dharam Singh (both Congress) and H.D. Kumaraswamy (JD-S) for distribution among all parliament members ahead of the budget session beginning February third week.
Source: IANS

Bangalore: The land scam complaints, filed by the two advocates who got the nod from Governor H R Bhardwaj to prosecute Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, are bound to put the CM and the BJP in a bind. And in a clever strategy, the two advocates -- Sirajin Basha and K N Balaraj - have filed over 20 cases so that if CM escapes in one, he may be ensnared in another.
The two lightweight advocates from Yeddyurappa's home town of Shimoga were picked by the CM's arch rival H D Kumaraswamy, president of the Janata Dal (S), and the strategy to file multiple complaints was a brainwave of the JD(S), sources say.
In their complaint filed before a special court here, the advocates have alleged that Yeddyurappa's relatives acquired benami properties worth Rs 88.48 crore. And the petition points out that the entire Rs 88.48 crore for acquiring these properties went from a single bank account that was operated from Bangalore -- Bharat Co-operative Bank (Mumbai).
The people who bought these properties worth Rs 88.48 crore were no cash cows. Obviously they were just stand-ins or benamis. The petitions have named the benami property owners as: M Manjunath of Kumsi in Shimoga, his elder sister N Akkamahadevi, N S Mahalabaleshwara of Honnali, V Manjunath, V Prakash, V Anil Kumar and K Shivappa of Bangalore. All of them have been roped in as respondents in the petition.
The first of a series of benami transactions dates back to August 7, 2010, when Yeddyurappa denotified 2.05 acres of land worth Rs 46. 5 crore in Arakere in Bangalore South taluk. Of this, 1.07 acres, worth about Rs 25.39 crore was purchased by N Akkamahadevi and Mahabaleshwarappa. The question that would be asked by the court and the IT department would be on how Akkamahadevi and Mahabaleshwarappa got that much money.
The petition then focuses on one V Prakash who obtained general power of attorney (GPA) of the above land.
The second denotification took place on May 26, 2010. On that day, the Yeddyurappa government denotified 1.07 acres of land Devarachikkanahalli in Bangalore South. The land was originally acquired by the Bangalore Development Authority in 1994 for a layout. Soon after the denotification, a major chunk was purchased by M Manjuanth and V Anil Kumar -- close associates of Yeddyurappa.
The petitioner advocates have pointed out that Anil Kumar is a close associate of Yeddyurappa's son B Y Vijayendra.
The next denotification took place on September 1, 2010, when the Government freed four acres in Geddalahalli, which was identified for the Arkavathi layout near Bangalore . V Manjunath and K Shivappa purchased the land after it was denotified.
Yeddyurappa will have a tough time trying to answer why he denotified the lands and how these shady transactions took place.

Jammu: Even as senior BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar were arrested at Jammu airport on Monday and sent to Punjab, the party plans to continue with its Lal Chowk programme as scheduled. The BJP youth wing's Rashtriya Ekta Yatra is scheduled to enter Jammu and Kashmir tomorrow and a number of BJYM workers from elsewhere in the country have already reached the state.
A dozen local BJP leaders, including two MLAs, were taken into custody in Jammu and prohibitory orders imposed under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) all along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway passing through Kathua district from Lakhanpur. Movement of vehicles on link roads within various districts, especially along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway, has also been suspended.
Having already sealed its borders with neighbouring Punjab with the deployment of seven to eight companies of CRPF personnel, senior civil and police officers from the state held a meeting with their Punjab counterparts to seek their help in stopping the yatra from entering the state tomorrow.
To prevent any BJYM or BJP activist from entering the state under the guise of pilgrim or tourist, the Kathua district administration plans to ban the entry of all vehicles coming from Punjab from tomorrow morning. In other districts, security has been intensified along the national highway right upto the Jawahar tunnel.
On Monday, the three BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar, who were scheduled to address a rally of party activists marching to Srinagar tomorrow, arrived at Jammu aiport in a chartered plane at around 3:15 pm. They were immediately asked to return to Delhi, as senior officials pointed out that their party's request for holding a rally in Jammu had been rejected in view of the imposition of prohibitory orders.
But the trio refused to return, and spent the first couple of hours at the airport's arrival lounge. At around 5:45 pm, they were taken to the VIP lodge at the airport, after Director General of Police Kuldeep Khooda arrived at the spot. As all efforts by senior civil and police officers to persuade them to return failed, the BJP leaders were formally arrested at about 9 pm and taken by road to Punjab. They have been taken to Madhopur in Punjab.
In Delhi, BJP spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad said: "This is a repressive action by the government of India. We condemn it. We will go ahead with the yatra". Targeting the Centre, he said, "this decision could not have been that of the J&K Chief Minister alone. It has to be at the behest of the Centre".
On Monday, as tempers frayed, Chidambaram spoke to Omar Abdullah to discuss possible options to defuse the situation. Abdullah is learnt to have conveyed to the Home Minister that it was not possible to let the BJP activists march till Srinagar and unfurl the Tricolour at Lal Chowk. He expressed his inability to even let the BJP leaders address the proposed rally in Jammu, sources said.
Chidambaram then asked Abdullah to send some senior state government officials to Jammu to talk to the BJP leaders and persuade them to return to Delhi. Abdullah agreed to send Chief Secretary S S Kapoor and DGP Kuldeep Khooda to Jammu.
The Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's (BJYM) Ekta Yatra, which began from Kolkata on January 12, is set to culminate with the hoisting of the national flag at Lal Chowk, in Srinagar, on January 26. Earlier, both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had advised restraint, cautioning that the incident may "disturb the peace".
Source: Indian Express

In a signed statement, he asked the Karnataka Government and BJP to maintain law and order, saying the party's move to take to the streets against the governor's decision is not acceptable.
"It is not the first time that a Governor has given his sanction to prosecute a chief minister or a minister of the state government. The law in this respect is clear and well-settled," he said.
The Home Minister said he was "disappointed" that the BJP has raised the decibel level and has taken to the streets which was "not correct" and was "totally unacceptable".
"The Government of Karnataka is obliged to maintain law and order in the state, not to standby when law and order is disrupted by party cadres or there are acts of violence," he said.
Bhardwaj had yesterday sanctioned prosecution of Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa in alleged land scams. The BJP had hit back at the Governor calling the decision constitutionally improper and politically motivated.
Taking a dig at BJP, Chidambaram said he was glad to note that the party no longer says that "the alleged transgressions of law in Karnataka are only immoral and not illegal."
"Surely, the BJP knows the legal position. The BJP also knows that any person aggrieved by the order of the Governor can seek legal remedies. Hence, it is my sincere hope that the BJP will advise its state unit to abide by the law and will advise the Government of Karnataka to discharge its constitutional obligation to maintain law and order," he said.
The Home Minister said the Centre has taken note of the developments in Karnataka and he was not going into the merits of the complaints that were before the Governor of Karnataka in respect of which he has granted sanction for prosecution.
"The purpose of this statement is to set out the constitutional and legal position," he said. Chidambaram said the leading case in this behalf is M.P. Special Police Establishment Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh.
That was a case in which the then Governor of Madhya Pradesh Bhai Mahavir overruled the advice of the Cabinet and granted sanction to prosecute two ministers. A 5-Judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld the order of the Governor.
The Home Minister said he would draw the BJP's attention to the statement made by Justice (Retd) Santosh Hegde, Lokayukta of Karnataka, who has observed that the Governor had the jurisdiction to grant sanction for prosecution.
The Home Minister said he has requested Union Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai to speak to the Karnataka Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police in this regard.
Source: Agencies

Bangalore: Violence broke out in several places across Karnataka on Saturday and prohibitory order under Sec 144 of the IPC was clamped over several areas in Bangalore for two days following a bandh called by the BJP against Governor H R Bhardwaj sanctioning permission to two lawyers to prosecute Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa.
In Bangalore, buses went off the road and shops and offices were shut for the day. Schools and colleges too declared a holiday. Roads wore a deserted look as BJP workers paralysed traffic at key areas. In Bangalore, BJP held a padayatra led by Law Minister Suresh Kumar who told newsmen that the Governor's action reeked of political conspiracy and vendetta.
Tyres and effigies of Bhardwaj were burnt at several places in Bangalore and across Karnataka. Early in the morning, BJP workers blocked the road leading to the Bangalore International Airport leading to a pile up of traffic. Passengers going to the airport were badly hit. Many could not make it to the airport as the state-run Volvo buses to the airport went off the roads and private taxi operators refused to ply their vehicle.
Vehicle movement on National Highways were badly affected. NH 4 at Hubli saw a major traffic snarl as BJP workers blocked traffic. In Davanagere, a bus was burnt and the driver Laxman was injured.
Section 144 was clamped over Seshadiripuram, Gaganhalli, Malleswaram and other key areas known to be BJP strongholds.
In Bellary, the home district of the Reddy brothers, the bandh was total as people stayed at home. Stones were pelted at private vehicles too and the police had to intervene.
In Belgaum, there was mild tension as some shops refused to down shutters. BJP workers stoned these shops leading to tension.
Gulbarga, Bidar, Mysore and Mangalore too saw huge traffic snarls and some violence.
The bandh was called by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party against the Governor move permitting prosecution of Yeddyurappa and Home Minister R Ashoka over alleged land scandals.
On the political front, Yeddyurappa said Bhardwaj had refused to share a copy of the sanction letter that allowed prosecution of the CM and Home Minister.
Meanwhile, Bhardwaj has briefed Union Home Minister P Chidambaram over the prosecution move and the situation in Karnataka.
In a related development, sources said Yeddyurappa is likely to file a petition before the High Court on January 24 challenging Bhardwaj's sanction to prosecute him under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.
"We are already working on a framework. We will go to court. The chief minister is likely to file a petition before the High Court on Monday", Minister for Law S Suresh Kumar said.
He said the Governor is yet to furnish a copy of his order giving sanction to prosecute Yeddyurappa, despite pleas.
"Let us see whether the Governor will give us a copy today", Kumar said.
Yesterday, Yeddyurappa had shot off a letter to Bhardwaj objecting to denial of the copy of the order.
Sources said when chief minister's Principal Secretary met the Governor, Bhardwaj told him that he would first give the order copy to complainants.
Bhardwaj had on Friday sanctioned prosecution of Yeddyurappa in alleged land scams. BJP had hit back at the Governor calling the decision constitutionally improper and politically motivated.
The Governor has been has been engaged in an open battle with the Chief Minister on charges of corruption against ministers, especially the Reddy brothers, in the BJP government in the state.
A Raj Bhavan communique said the sanction was accorded under Section 19(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. Both the provisions relate to Governor's powers to grant sanction against public servant.

Source: India Syndicate with inputs from agencies

New Delhi: While the recent protests against Rahul Gandhi's visits to campuses in Varanasi and Allahabad may have brought his interactive sessions with students back in the news, there is another side to this picture: his initiatives have done little to improve the acceptability of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) among students.
Despite Rahul's flying visits to many universities, the students' wing of the Congress has been getting a drubbing on campus after campus in union elections. It was in September 2007 that Rahul was inducted as party general secretary and given the charge of the Youth Congress and NSUI. Exhorting youth to join politics, he sought to end the nomination culture in the party by introducing "internal elections" in these organisations.
To give a spur to this "process of democratisation", Rahul has been visiting college and university campuses across the country and holding interactive sessions, intended to give Gen Next an idea of his ideals and vision.
The recent university results indicate that his overtures have failed, and NSUI sources attribute it to "loopholes" in Rahul's strategy. The NSUI leader was referring to one of Rahul's experiments in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) polls. To guard against leaders making the nominations, the NSUI asked office-bearers of elected college units to select their DUSU panel of candidates. But the results put a question mark on the efficacy of this experiment.
Weeks before the Rajasthan University election, the NSUI tried another experiment, modelled on the MBA entrance tests. Students wishing to get NSUI membership had to write a test, which reportedly consisted of questions on the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee on students' union elections, as well as the Raghavan committee's on ragging. The written test was followed by an interview and a group discussion. The RU election results showed little impact of these exercises.
NSUI president Hibi Eden, however, sees nothing unusual in the setbacks suffered by the students' wing. "If you look at the history of these campuses, be it Hyderabad or Himachal Pradesh, they have been dominated by the Left for the past 15 years, just as Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. We don't see anything unusual in the results there. But the Himachal Pradesh regional campus has our president. On the whole, we have increased our vote share."
As for the dismal performance in the DUSU pols, Eden sought to blame the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations (limiting the duration of the election exercise). "We got just three days for campaigning and it was impossible to reach out to two lakh students. There should be some creative platforms like a presidential debate where candidates could explain their agenda to students."
Asked why Rahul had not been able to make a mark, Eden says: "I am the NSUI president and it is my responsibility. Rahul Gandhi is the general secretary and it is not for him to collect votes. Tell me one leader other than him who is acceptable among the students' community."
Source: Indian Express

"A shocking report published by Global Financial Transparency said that India's Rs 20.85 lakh crore have been deposited with Swiss Banks. We have even written a letter to the Prime Minister in this regard. But we have not received a reply so far," Advani said here at a NDA rally against inflation and corruption.
"We also should have some law to bring the money back. Why are we silent over the issue just because few people related to Congress have been connected with it. The Prime Minister had assured before the Lok Sabha polls to look into the issue. Now he should speak," he said.
Speaking at the rally, BJP President Nitin Gadkari claimed he had some Swiss Bank account numbers which were related to the Bofors case.
"I have three Swiss Bank account numbers which were related to the Bofors case. Quattrocchi transfered money into Win Chadda's account is now known and he also had close relations with Gandhi family. Congress should speak on it," Gadkari said.
Blaming the UPA Government for inflation, Gadkari said petrol prices went up seven times in just six months and rates of onions were also increasing, making life difficult for poor people.
Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray criticised the UPA Government for talking about saffron terrorism and said it is just trying to divert people's attention from various scams and corruption cases.
"So far there was no colour given to terrorism and now suddenly the Government is talking about saffron terrorism. This is a new trick to declare Hindus as terrorist and divert people's attention from scams and corruptions," Uddhav said.
He also expressed doubt over implementation of Ministry of Environment's recommendation to demolish the controversial Adarsh building.
"The government should demolish the building. Environment Minister Ramesh is saying so today, but tomorrow he may change. The people are so much fed up with corruption that they will themselves demolish it," he said.
NDA convener Sharad Yadav said only Congress party is against setting up of Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the scams, as its allies including Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar were agreeing to the Opposition's demand.
Source: Agencies