News: I-T department conduct raids in two tehsil offices over property registry data-10-06-2023
The income tax department searched two tehsil offices in the city on Friday. The "search and survey" operation began at the offices in Kadipur and Harsaru early in the morning and was continuing when the report was being filed late in the evening.
The search by the intelligence and criminal investigation wing was necessitated because the two offices had not been sending to the I-T department any details related to registries for the past five years, officials said.
According to rules, details of all registries worth over Rs 30 lakh have to be shared with the I-T department. The revenue department of the tehsil office must provide the names, PAN and Aadhaar card details of the buyers and sellers in such cases. The I-T department, the officials said, needs the details for further scrutiny and for carrying out surveys.
"This disruption in sharing of information on registries had been hampering our work. That is why the searches are being conducted," said an I-T official.
Earlier too, revenue department officials have come under scrutiny for alleged involvement in irregularities.
On April 6, the anti-corruption bureau had arrested a tehsildar for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 40 lakh for authorising illegal colonies.
The tehsildar, who had additional charge of the Manesar office, was also accused of showing industrial plots as agricultural land while executing registries. This had caused a huge loss to the state exchequer because of the difference in circle rates between the two types of plots.
On April 19, a sales deed writer of the revenue department in Sohna was arrested while accepting a bribe of Rs 60,000. The accused, officials had said, was accepting the bribe on behalf of the nayab tehsildar.
On July 22 last year, the Haryana government had banned all registries in the state after it was found that a number of illegal registries had been done during the first lockdown by local tehsildars in connivance with property dealers.
Seven current and retired tehsildars were suspended by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and were later booked for violating Section 7 of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975.
An investigation revealed there were around 1,200 land registries that had been executed without informing the town and country planning department or taking a no-objection certificate from it.
According to rules, the registration of sale deeds of plots measuring less than half an acre cannot be done without permission from the DTCP.
