Illegal land registry: 60 officials under scanner in Haryana

CHANDIGARH: Nearly 60 officials from the revenue, town and country planning and urban development departments of Haryana are facing departmental proceedings for alleged violation of various rules, especially Sections 7 and 7A of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act.

This is consequent to the reports submitted by the divisional commissioners of Ambala, Karnal, Hisar, Gurugram, Faridabad and Rohtak who have examined the registration of sale deeds of properties since March 2017.

Officials said Faridabad and Karnal divisional commissioners were last to send the compiled reports on Thursday. Earlier this week, Rohtak divisional commissioner had submitted the report.

Officials facing action included registrar, sub-registrars, registry clerks, district town planners, junior engineers, staff maintaining records of land falling within the civic bodies and a few computer operators in tehsils.

Sanjeev Kaushal, additional chief secretary (revenue), said the reports are being examined and the final outcome is expected by next week.

“We are examining the violations and gravity of violation. We shall initiate the proceedings according to gravity of offence, if any,” Kaushal said.

Sources said 30,000 registries had been allegedly found to have been done in violation of rules during the lockdown. And, as a result, the revenue department had barred the registries in the state for a month and a half. The registration work was started after launching an integrated software for the urban development department, town and country planning department.

The violation mostly relates to registry of land situated within the jurisdiction of civic body or town and country planning department. It is alleged that people have got the sale deeds registered without getting the no objection certificate (NOC) from urban local bodies as well as town and country planning.

Police transfer six cases to CID

Haryana Police has transferred the investigations of all the six cases related to registry scam of Gurugram to the CID’s crime branch in Haryana. The cases were transferred in December. The cases were registered against a tehsildar and five naib tehsildars who had registered the sale deeds without an NOC.