News: Probe land registries in Haryana from 2010-16 for Section 7A violations: Khattar-15-03-2022
The move comes with an aim to prevent mushrooming of unauthorised colonies and haphazard construction in urban belts
Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday said that land registries from 2010 to 2016 will be checked for violation of Section 7A of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975, which aims to prevent mushrooming of unauthorised colonies and haphazard construction in urban belts.
“We are committed to firmly dealing with corruption. The testament to our anti-corruption stance is the investigation we ordered on our own to look into violations of land registration under Section 7A after receiving complaints,” said Khattar in the state assembly during a discussion on alleged irregularities in the registries done during the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) regime.
The BJP-JJP government came to power in Haryana in 2014. From 2004 to 2014, the Congress ruled the state.
Now, the fresh probe will look into violations, if any, committed during the Congress’ second term when Bhupinder Singh Hooda was the chief minister.
According to the Opposition Congress, as per the BJP-JJP government’s own admission, about 64,577 deeds registered between April 2017 and August 2021 were found in violation of rules in an ongoing probe.
Ever since these irregularities came to the fore, the Opposition parties accused the state government, especially deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala who holds the revenue department portfolio, of brushing this “mega registration scam” under the carpet .
Congress leader Kiran Choudhary alleged, “The registration scam in Haryana is the mother of all scams, whereby the sale and purchase of immovable properties in the controlled areas of municipalities of state were allowed by the land revenue department officials without obtaining requisite no-objection certificates from department of town and country planning officials, violating provisions of the notification under Section 7A .”
Indian National Lok Dal senior leader Abhay Chautala alleged that this “scam” could not have been possible without government patronage.
Dushyant Chautala, meanwhile, said the government is initiating “very tough action” against guilty officials.
“The state government has taken a serious view of the complaints,” he said, adding the government received complaints in 2020, and began a preliminary inquiry in June that year. After observing certain violations, the government instructed the police to charge sheet three sub-registrars and five joint sub-registrars posted in Gurugram, and lodge six FIRs against one sub-registrar and five joint sub-registrars.
According to official records placed in the assembly on August 13, 2020, all divisional commissioners in the state were directed to inquire into violations of Section 7A. Officials said 64,577 violations were detected across the state--21,716 in Gurugram division, 9,774 in Karnal division, 2,864 in Ambala division, 1,016 in Hisar division, 10,849 in Rohtak division and 18,358 in Faridabad division.
