The High Court of Karnataka has upheld the conviction of seven persons, including an official and a clerk of the Income Tax Department, in a 24-year-old scam to knock off property belonging to the family of the Mysore Maharaja. They had sold the property, worth crores of rupees, at throwaway price to their coterie through a dubious public auction process.
The convicts are C. Subbarayan, former I-T Inspector; B.N. Rajanna, former Upper Division Clerk (UDC) of I-T Department; Jagadeep R. Thandani, Director of M/s Belair Estates Pvt. Ltd.; and private individuals S. Narayanamurthy, R.S. Sethuraman, B.C. Ashwath, and M.D. Bheema Naidu.
Justice N.K. Sudhindrarao passed the order while upholding the August 30, 2010, verdict of a Special Court for CBI cases, which had convicted 8 eight of the 10 accused against whom the CBI had filed charge sheet. “This is an ideal case to show how conspiracy is hatched, system is cheated, misuse of laws is effected, and white-collared crime is committed, wherein all the accused persons are equally liable for the offences,” the High Court observed.
Two accused persons, Shivanna, Income Tax Recovery Officer (ITRO), and K. Ramanna, UDC, died during the pendency of the trial, and convict Narasimhamurthy, a private individual, died during the course of his appeal in the High Court.
The public auction of the 10-acre property, situated at survey number 4, Kurubarahalli, near Zoo Garden, Mysuru, belonging to Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, was organised on October 30, 1995, by ITRO Shivanna to recover income tax dues of around ₹7.51 crore. Two officials, two clerks of the I-T Department along with six private individuals had created fake documents to undervalue the prime property and the reserve price for auction was fixed at just ₹2 lakh per acre against ₹30-40 lakh per acre.
The convicts had ensured that no bidder other then their coterie participated in the auction conducted by not issuing proper and valid public notice and not notifying the property owner.
The auction, held in a room of a private hotel in Mysuru, was finalised for ₹21 lakh in favour of Thandani, who had quoted ₹2.1 lakh per acre.
Subsequently, the Commissioner of Income Tax, on complaints by Wadiyar and others, cancelled the auction. The CBI in February 1996 registered a case and submitted charge sheet alleging that it was a well-planned criminal conspiracy to knock off prime land at a low price through illegal means causing loss both to the department and the property owner.