Former Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) commissioner G T Dinesh Kumar, who was arrested by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Wednesday, allegedly handed over the authority’s properties to friends and relatives and later acquired them for his own real estate business interests.
Kumar served as the MUDA commissioner in the 2022-24 period when large-scale irregularities are alleged to have occurred in the Mysuru civic agency. He is alleged to have allotted 40 MUDA sites to Chamundeshwari Nagara Sarvodaya Sanga, a co-operative society, while his real estate business associate procured the general power of attorney for the sites to sell them in the open market, as per the central agency.
Kumar’s properties were searched by the ED earlier this week as part of its investigations into alleged money laundering through illegal MUDA land deals. He was arrested after he responded to a summons issued by the ED, sources said.
In a prosecution complaint earlier this year, the ED had stated that its investigation had established that Kumar had colluded with real estate businessmen N Manjunath, R Jayaramu, Santosh Sequeira, M Basavaraju, etc., to illegally and fraudulently allot sites of MUDA in the name of ineligible persons.
The ED reported that Kumar allotted the sites in the name of benamis and real estate businessmen.
“The illegal gratification, thus received, was further laundered and shown as derived out of legitimate sources. It has also been revealed that money was routed through a co-operative society for purchase of property, luxury vehicles etc., in the name of relatives of GT Dinesh Kumar…,” the ED said earlier this year.
Kumar is alleged to have allotted 48 sites under the controversial 50:50 compensation scheme during the 2023-24 financial year, despite the state urban development department in 2023 red-flagging the scheme as illegal.
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“This is also one of the circumstances to show that the sites are allotted as compensation illegally by the then Commissioners working from May 2020 to June 2024 and other officials and officers of MUDA in collusion with the land grabbers,” the Justice P N Desai commission set up to probe the MUDA scam by the Karnataka government stated in its recent report.
In January this year, the ED had stated that evidence seized during its searches had revealed “large scale illegal allotment of sites, illegal acceptance of gratification for making allotments, sale/transfer of sites in other persons’ name” to “obfuscate the true origin of proceeds of crime and generation of unaccounted cash” during Kumar and D B Natesh’s tenures as MUDA commissioners.
While the ED case against Natesh was quashed by the Karnataka High Court last year due to the absence of his name in the predicate offence, Kumar was not granted respite in the courts.
According to the ED, the profits of the sales of the illegally allotted MUDA sites “is also being routed to Shri.GT Dinesh Kumar through loans/advances to his relatives and associates. Also, some of the sites were transferred to relatives/associates of GT Dinesh Kumar and other influential persons”.
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Though the Chamundeshwari Sangha co-operative society had not placed any application for allotment of MUDA housing sites as compensation for land wrongly acquired by MUDA, Kumar “illegally allotted the above mentioned 40 sites as compensation against 5 acres 2 Guntas land” in Devanur village, in violation of government orders, the ED stated.
MUDA’s 50:50 land compensation scheme came under the scanner of law enforcement agencies after an RTI activist alleged that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s family also received an allotment of 14 sites in 2021 as compensation for a 3.16-acre property acquired by MUDA in Mysuru’s Kesare village.