Bowring Institute locker points to land mafia's hold on benami property

Bengaluru: The 14 benami property files, which were reportedly concealed by financier and permanent member of the Bowring Institute (BI) Avnash Amarlal Kukreja in the lockers of the club on St Mark's Road, have reportedly thrown open the floodgates of the real estate mafia in Bengaluru.  "Most of the files are of benami properties in Devanahalli and Begur near Kanakpura and are worth more than Rs 800 crore. The investigation should expose the underbelly of the real estate, the nexus among the realtors, politicians and the underworld and their murky dealings," said an official source. 

Sources, who didn't wish to be named, said that Kukreja is a well-known financier of Bengaluru and is known to practically every big real estate house and builder in the city. "He is the son of one of the top financiers in the City - Assardas Amarlal Kukreja from the Sindhi community. They have huge land banks, which they offer for a whopping price to top realtors for joint development. They also deal in litigated property," said an official source.  

A businessman and 'one-time-associate' of Avnash, on condition of anonymity, told Deccan Chronicle that almost 10 years ago he had approached Kukreja to help him sell his property in Whitefield, which was under litigation. "He helped me and bought it from me. I'm told that he had further sold the land to a prominent real estate baron and industrialist, who was very close to a former Congress chief minister. Some years ago, the I-T officials had raided his premises," said the businessman.  

Avnash's sister is married to a very wealthy family in Hong Kong. "Some of the documents that were seized had details of voluminous transactions in Hong Kong dollars," said the source.   Financier and permanent member of the Bowring Institute Avnash Amarlal Kukreja may lose his membership of the Institute.

“We are issuing a show-cause notice to Avnash for violating the conduct rules of the members of the club. He has to appear before the five-member disciplinary committee to explain why he should not be expelled from the club for violating the rules and bringing disrepute to the Institute. The committee will place its recommendations before the General Body for further action,” said Secretary, Bowring Institute, Srikanth H.S.

He said Avnash has been asked to explain why he was using the club lockers illegally without informing the management, despite the fact that the club had issued notices to all the members to register their names for locker use and pay an upgraded rent of Rs 50 per month. “We have asked him to explain why he had used the lockers for wrongful purposes such as keeping cash, diamonds, gold and incriminating property documents. The lockers are meant for members, who use the sports facilities. They are strictly meant to store sports accessories. Avnash’s actions have brought disrepute to the club,” he said.

The BI management has now made stringent rules for the use of club lockers. A notice is shortly going to be issued to all the members to mandatorily register their names for the lockers and pay the fees. “The use of lockers has been restricted to keeping sports accessories. We are also informing our members that the club will henceforth provide the locks and keep the duplicate key. We have also told them that we will be at liberty to carry random checks of lockers,” Srikanth said.