'Nothing to do with it,' says Karnataka CM after ED arrests ex-MUDA commissioner in plot allotment scam

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday distanced himself from the arrest of former Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) commissioner GT Dinesh Kumar by the enforcement directorate (ED) officials. “I have nothing to do with it,” the CM said in response to a query in Kalaburagi.

The ED officials have arrested Kumar under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, in connection with the unlawful allotment of housing plots in Mysuru under the controversial 50:50 scheme. He was later produced in court. The role of ex-MUDA commissioners including Kumar has emerged as instrumental in the illegal allotment of compensation sites to ineligible entities and individuals.

The arrest followed intensive search operations at the two of his residential premises in Bangalore on Tuesday. He faces the charge of indulging in large scale illegal allotment of MUDA plots in return for unlawful gains. The investigation till now has revealed his active involvement in money laundering activities, ED officials said.


In June this year, the ED had provisionally attached 92 MUDA plots estimated to be worth Rs 100 crore, continuing with earlier attachment of 160 similar plots. The cumulative market value of the “proceeds of the crime” is about Rs 400 crore.

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 to the CM’s wife in the upscale Vijayanagar in Mysuru to compensate acquisition of 3.16 of her land in Kesare village. In September, last year, she, however, returned the plots to MUDA putting an end to discussions on the controversial allotment.