BDA Layout: SC panel stumped at use of fake imagery

BENGALURU: House owners in Dr K Shivarama Karanth Layout are leaving no stone unturned to get their buildings a legal seal and ensure that they get into a safe zone. The Justice A V Chandrasekhar Committee (JCC), appointed by the Supreme Court to regularise buildings built prior to August 3, 2018, in areas earmarked for the layout formation, is stumped at the blatant incongruity between documentary evidence submitted to it.

For the past 18 months, the three-member committee and its support staff have been examining documents submitted to them before recommending their regularisation to the court. “The complete mismatch between the images of houses shared with us and the reality when our field staff visit the spot to prepare the Common Dimensional Report of the building is baffling,” said Jayakar S Jerome, a committee member.

“We have detected anomalies in 84 out of nearly 3,000 documents submitted to us so far,” he said. Five help desks had been collecting ownership documents physically from home owners spread across 17 villages in north Bengaluru where the layout will come up, apart from online uploads.

‘Violators felt no checks would be done’ 

Three teams assess 15 houses a day and cross-check everything on the ground with the help of tech support. “Houses were built after the cut-off date given by the SC and owners are desperate to regularise them somehow. To mask the fresh appearance of the house, they show very old pictures of it when it was just a thatched shed or submit pics of humble houses of relatives or friends. They assumed no checks would be done and the committee would issue regularisation certificates on behalf of the BDA for the building shown on the specific survey number,” said a staffer.  

The land of the occupant too is saved if the house is regularised and this drives people to use fake images to prove some building had been built, another staffer said. “This is done with the calculation that land value will shoot up in a BDA Layout. When our teams visit the spot, there would be no buildings but just empty sites,” he added.

In a shocker, for one specific house, there were five individuals who staked ownership claim. Autocad drawings were uploaded in a few cases. The detection has been facilitated by a Bengaluru-based IT firm, Navigem Data Pvt Ltd.