Thaindian News

Bangalore, Oct 1 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator Katta Jagadish Naidu was remanded to judicial custody Friday after he was arrested by the Lokayukta (Ombudsman) police late Thursday on graft charges.

“Jagadish will be in judicial custody till Monday as his bail application will be taken up for hearing Oct 4. We have interrogated him to gather details for attempting to influence a key witness by bribing him in the land compensation scam,” Ombudsman N. Santosh Hegde said here.

Jagadish, who represents the upscale Vasantnagar ward in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), is the son of IT and Housing Minister Katta Subramanya Naidu in the first BJP government in south India.

The Ombudsman’s counsel opposed the bail plea of the corporator in a city court on the grounds that his custody was required for further investigations into the multi-billion rupee land compensation scam.

“We have to ascertain why Jagadish was trying to influence by bribing Rs.100,000 to the key witness (Ramanujappa) if he did not commit any financial irregularity,” Hegde said.

Jagadish has been accused of receiving around Rs.4 crore compensation from the state-run Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), which acquired 13 acres of land on the city’s outskirts that did not belong to him or his family but originally to a farmer Rangaswamy from Jala hobli in Devanahalli.

Jagadish is facing charges of forgery, cheating and attempting to erase evidence under section 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 10 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The opposition Congress sought the suspension of Jagadish from the civic council as the KIADB served notice to him and his family to recover the compensation paid to them after irregularities in the land ownership came to light.