Ananthamurthy alleges K'taka burying fraud of Rs 30,000 cr

New Delhi, Sep 1 (UNI) Padma Bhushan and Jnanpeeth awardee U R Ananthamurthy in his petition filed in the Supreme Court has alleged that a fraud worth over Rs 30,000 crores is being buried by Karnataka government in collusion with Nice Limited, the firm implementing Bangalore-Mysore corridor project in Karnataka.

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathasivam today fixed September 17 for hearing of the petition by a bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat.

Senior Counsel M N Krishnamani and Prashant Bhushan, counsel for the petitioner, mentioned the petition before the apex court for urgent hearing.

According to the petitioner, Nice Ltd and Karnataka government colluded and obtained the orders from the apex court and the Karnataka High Court by suppressing relevant documents and played fraud on the courts.

The eminent Kannada writer has further alleged that the land to be returned by Nice Ltd to the government was fraudulently changed from 14255.7 acres to 11966 acres thereby, giving 2289 acres of land to Nice to be sold by them to make profits through the real estate business.

Nice had been given the contract to construct the Bangalore-Mysore express highway having five townships on 5937.3 acres of land which was fraudulently increased to 8227 acres.

The petitioner has prayed to the apex court to set aside the decisions of 12th and 13th Empowered Committee.

Mr Ananthamurthy has also prayed to the court to direct the respondent not to proceed further and give effect to the Bangalore-Mysore express highway project except as originally conceived and upheld in Somasheker Reddy's case.

UNI SC JT RP RAI1956