News: How illegal registries of land flourished during lockdown in Gurugram-03-08-2020
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/how-illegal-registries-of-land-flourished-during-lockdown/articleshow/77322529.cms
GURUGRAM: The state government is planning to develop by September 15 a digital platform where a land buyer can access all information related to the property, such as an ongoing dispute, if any, or pending dues. The move follows multiple complaints of illegal registries of land in the past three months. During the lockdown period, around 10,000 land registrations had been done in Gurugram. Of these, at least 1,200 land parcels had been registered in an illegal manner after property dealers allegedly connived with local tehsildars.
After the irregularities came to the fore, the government had temporarily halted registration of land transfer deeds. On Friday, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar suspended six revenue officials posted in Gurugram. He had also asked departmental heads to devise a mechanism so that buyers have all information related to a property before getting it registered. Additional principal secretary to the CM, V Umashankar, said the digital platform — whether an app or a portal — would allow the buyer to see the licence details of the land, whether it falls in the commercial or residential category and if permission had been taken from the department of town and country planning (DTCP). If there are any anomalies, a tehsildar will not be able to register the land.
Property dealers who had sold land after registering them illegally had changed the classification of the plots from agricultural to residential. This apart, they had also not taken permission from DTCP before the registries. Section 7A of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas (amendment) Act, 2017, makes it mandatory to take the DTCP’s nod before registering a plot measuring less than 0.5 acres. Also, land classified as agricultural cannot be sold for building houses. Since a buyer had no way of getting information about a piece of land, the property dealers took advantage of this loophole and got the plot registered in an illegal manner. This was, obviously, in connivance with local tehsildars. “Yes, there were a few gaps in the registration system, which prevented crucial information from reaching the buyers. The land owner and a few corrupt officials used these gaps to register a property bypassing the norms. With the help of technology, we are working on a system to make the registration process foolproof,” Umashankar told TOI. He added that some features of the platform would be available this month itself. It was the buyers who were at the receiving end. In February this year, around 100 families living in a residential block of Sector 67 were shocked to learn that their flats stood on a plot that wasn’t even licensed and their registries had been done in an illegal manner. The DTCP later razed about 50 flats. Officials found that a group of developers had collaborated to build 150 flats on a 1.5-acre plot and sold them at a price ranging between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 70 lakh. They had even named the project Ansal Esencia Extension, which was similar to an existing project. District town planner RS Batth said land registered without an NOC was mostly used to build illegal colonies. “The biggest cause of mushrooming of illegal colonies is the registration of small plots without obtaining the mandatory no-objection certificate from DTCP,” he added. Batth agreed that the system was prevalent across the state. Umashankar insisted that the new digital platform would help stem illegal registries of land. “We have been collecting property details, available at multiple points. All these details will be put together to create a database and used to inform buyers about any issues related to the property concerned. This will definitely put a stop to frauds,” he added. The platform will also have details of legal disputes related to a property, if any. For this, the government is integrating nine
departments, including revenue, DTCP, HSVP, HSIIDC and police. In case of government land, the acquisition and litigation details will also be available online. “For private parties, we will attempt to integrate with e-courts to check for any dispute with approval from the high court and the Supreme Court. If there is any legal tangle, the registry will be blocked,” Umashankar said. In an order issued on Wednesday, the financial commissioner (revenue) and additional chief secretary (revenue and disaster management) Vijai Vardhan had said the state government was building a data-based mechanism to ensure foolproof registration. “The government has taken serious note of the complaints of malpractices that exist in the current mechanism for registration of deeds for transfer of land. In order to build a technology and data-based mechanism to curb and curtail possible malpractices and to ensure system-readiness for the purpose, the government has decided, as an interim measure, to temporarily halt the registration of deeds relating to transfer of land,” the order said. Earlier, deputy commissioner Amit Khatri, who also heads the revenue department in Gurugram, had ordered that DTCP officials be deployed in all nine tehsil offices in the district to ensure transparency in the registration process. “The DTCP staff will help revenue officials in ensuring transparency in the registration process. They will also guide the staff in ensuring that mandatory permissions are taken from the department concerned before the land registries are executed,” he had said.
