Sub-registrars are suspects in revenue stamp fraud: Police

City Event Governance Safety

The sub-registrars functioned as middlemen: Police officer

The police suspect that sub registrars were involved in a revenue stamp fraud that came to light recently. A police officer said that they functioned as middlemen.

Mr Venugopal, assistant commissioner of police, Central Crime Branch, informed The Observer: “A revenue site is agricultural land in the green belt. You need permission from the local authority to get this land. Sub-registrars are becoming middlemen and, through stamp vendors, making their own profit and deceiving buyers.”

KV Thrilok had lodged a complaint on October 18 under the Information Technology Act, 2000, against the sub-registrars and two stamp vendors.

“The two sub-registrars, and vendors Keshava and Rangaswamy, were arrested as the buyer and the seller both went to stamp vendors. The vendor mentioned the government price of the land as well as his commission. The buyer then came to police to lodge a complaint. We are investigating. A special team has been sent to Pune to collect more information. We hope to reach a conclusion soon,” the ACP said.

The registration of revenue sites in unauthorized layouts, and that of sites in approved but undeveloped layouts, is banned as the layouts and sites are in unconverted agricultural land. Till the ban was imposed, up to 5 lakh persons had purchased such sites and built houses on them without registration. This resulted in hardship to them. Therefore, the government proposed to regularize all such sites and layouts developed prior to December 12, 2008, as a one-time comprehensive scheme subject to certain reasonable conditions.

Deepthi Ayathan, an advocate, informed The Observer: “To get land, one has to go through the application procedure under the local governmental authority so that one gets the license of that land. There are some criteria to follow. To issue a licence, the local authority should check under what jurisdiction that land comes under. There are several cases where the licences have been violated, and people cheated repeatedly. We still haven’t found any mechanism that can stop this sort of case. Now, everything and anything can be duplicated. A large huge number of people are being scammed.. The Enforcement Department has to look into it.”

According to a Deccan Herald report, several sub-registrars, data entry operators and engineers have applied for anticipatory bail fearing arrest.

ankita.m@iijnm.org

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