FIRs against seven in illegal land registries row in Haryana

GURUGRAM: Six revenue department officials, who had been suspended by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar for allegedly colluding with property dealers to facilitate illegal land registries, have now been booked for violating Section 7 of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975. A retired official has also been named in the FIR.

Gurgaon police registered the FIRs following a complaint by district town planner RS Batth. They were booked under IPC Section 420 (cheating), among others. In the past three months, 1,200 land registries had been done without keeping the department of town and country planning (DTCP) in the loop. Property dealers allegedly connived with these revenue officials to carry out the illegal practice.

According to Section 7A of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas (Amendment) Act, 2017, registration of sale deeds of plots measuring less than half an acre cannot be done without permission from the DTCP. At least 200 of the 1,200 registries done illegally in the past three months had no NOC from the DTCP.

After the irregularities came to light, the chief minister had on July 31 suspended tehsildar Bansilal and naib tehsildars Dalbir Singh Duggal (Sohna), Hari Krishna (Badshapur), Jai Prakash (Wazirabad), Deshraj Kamboj (Gurgaon) and Jagdish (Manesar). The chargesheet also had the name of a seventh accused — Om Prakash, who had retired as the naib tehsildar of Kadipur.

District town planner Batth said there had been a series of complaints against these officials regarding violation of registry norms. The FIR against them was registered on Sunday evening on the directions from the headquarters, he added.

“At the time of demolition drives, the enforcement team had faced a lot of problems as the property owners would show registries of their land deeds. Often, the teams had to let them off,” he said.