ED Arrests Former MUDA Commissioner Dinesh Kumar In Land Allotment Scam Case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested Dinesh Kumar, former Commissioner of the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA), in connection with the alleged land allotment scam.

Kumar, who is a Karnataka Administrative Service (KAS) officer, is accused of facilitating the illegal allocation of compensation plots to recipients who were not eligible.

The Karnataka government had suspended him in September last year, just three days after he was appointed registrar of Haveri University. A technical committee’s report had flagged several violations of rules which led to that decision.

Details of his arrest are yet to be revealed by officials.

This development comes just days after Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his family were

given a clean chit by the judicial commission probing the alleged MUDA scam.

Last week, Karnataka Minister HK Patil had said a one-member commission led by Justice PN Desai reviewed the claims and, in a two-part report, found the allegations against Siddaramaiah and his family to be baseless.

“A one-man commission headed by Justice PN Desai had been constituted, which has submitted its report in two parts. It has clarified that the allegations made against the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his family members are baseless in connection with the MUDA case,” Patil had stated.

In the alleged MUDA scam, it is claimed that compensatory plots were allotted to Siddaramaiah’s wife, BM Parvathi, in a prime area of Mysuru. These plots were said to have a much higher property value than the land MUDA had “acquired” from her.

Parvathi received the plots under MUDA’s controversial 50:50 scheme, which allows landowners to receive 50% of the developed land in return for giving up their undeveloped land for layout projects. In her case, MUDA had taken 3.16 acres of land to develop a residential layout.

However, opposition leaders and some activists have raised questions over the legality of the deal. They allege that Parvathi did not hold a valid legal title to the 3.16 acres, making the land exchange improper.