Karnataka Lokayukta in row over acquisition of residential plot

Just over a month after assuming office in August, the new Lokayukta of Karmnataka, retired Supreme Court Justice Shivraj Patil, finds himself in the midst of a row over securing allotment of two residential plots from two housing co-operatives in alleged violation of rules.

Patil was allotted a plot measuring 9,600 sq ft in a residential layout formed by Karnataka State Judicial Department Employees House Building Cooperative Society in 1994, at Allalasandra, on the outskirts of Bangalore.

At the same time, Vyalikaval House Building Cooperative Society at Nagawara allotted another plot measuring about 4,012 sq ft to his wife Annapura in 2006.

Patil, however, defended himself, stating that his wife had purchased one of the sites.

Any member or a family who has been allotted a site by a society is barred from getting another in any housing society in the name of other family members, as per the norms of allotment for housing cooperatives in the state, critics point out.

The allotments violate Sec 10 (a) of the model bye-law framed for house building cooperative societies, they point out.