The state government has decided to enlarge the scope of the judicial probe into denotification of lands from 10 to 16 years, chief minister BS Yeddyurappa said today.
The inquiry would now include denotification of lands by Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) and Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) from 1994 till date, the chief minister, who is enmeshed in an alleged land scam, told reporters.
The move is seen as an attempt to bring under the scanner, the regime of former chief minister and JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda, who, along with his two sons, has been targeting the BJP government.
The cabinet had yesterday decided to order a judicial probe into lands denotified by KIADB and BDA in the last 10 years.
The announcement for the probe is apparently aimed at blunting the opposition attack on Yeddyurappa who is mired in controversy over allotment of KIADB lands to his daughter and denotifying BDA lands to his son-in-law Sohan Kumar and sons - BY Raghavendra and BY Vijendra.
An aggressive JD(S) yesterday filed a complaint against Yeddyurappa with the Lokayukta for denotifying lands, claiming it was a Rs5,000 crore scam.
The chief minister has, however, countered the attack, saying his predecessors had also denotified lands and allotted prime urban plots to their relatives.
Yeddyurappa said the Congress had no moral right to question his government as the party itself was hit by controversies at national level, including those relating to Adarsh society, CWG and the second-generation mobile telephony spectrum allocation.
He said BJP would prepare a report on all land scams during the Congress rule and bring out a booklet to be distributed before the zilla and taluka panchayt polls.
Hitting out at the opposition Congress leader in the Assembly Siddaramaiah, Yeddyurappa said he had no moral right to talk about BJP since he had defected from JDS to Congress.
The chief minister said he would leave for New Delhi to meet the high command and explain in detail the happenings in Karnataka.
Yeddyurappa also said his family members had surrendered the sites alloted to them.
