MUDA Scam: ED attaches 92 more plots, total seizures add up to worth Rs 400 Cr

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached 92 Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) plots estimated to be worth Rs 100 crore under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 as part of its investigations into MUDA affairs.

The attachment is in continuation of the previous attachment of 160 similar plots with a market value of about Rs 300 Crore.

The ED Bengaluru Zonal Office processed the provisional attachments. The cumulative market value of the “proceeds of the crime” is about Rs 400 crore, the agency said, while adding that the investigation is still underway.


The ED began investigations in September last year after registering an enforcement case information report (ECIR), the police equivalent of an FIR, within days after the Lokayukta police in Mysuru registered an FIR against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his wife BM Parvathi, brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy and landowner Devaraju in a case of alleged unlawful allotment of 14 housing plots in the city to the CM’s wife in the upscale Vijayanagar in Mysuru. The Lokayukta FIR, registered under various sections of the IPC, 1860 and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, named the CM as the first accused.

In its press statement on Tuesday, the ED said the properties it has attached have been registered in the names of entities such as a housing cooperative society and individuals who, it said, are the “front or dummy” for influential persons including MUDA officials.

ED investigation, the press statement said, revealed a large-scale scam in allotment of MUDA plots as officials flouted the regulations and used fraudulent means. The role of ex-MUDA commissioners including GT Dinesh Kumar has emerged as instrumental in the illegal allotment of compensation sites to ineligible entities and individuals.

The ED said it has gathered evidence showing payment of bribes by beneficiaries in the form of cash, bank transfer, movable/immovable properties for receiving illegal allotments.

The modus operandi for illegal allotment involved identification of ineligible beneficiaries and making allotments using fake or incomplete documents in direct violation of government orders and also back dating of allotment letters in some cases.

The MUDA officials used a cooperative society and bank accounts of relatives and associates to route the bribes. The officers used bribes to buy some of the illegally allotted MUDA plots in the names of their relatives, the statement said.