E-Paper
Maharashtra to probe 27 sub registrar offices for property registration violations
The Maharashtra state government initiated an in-depth probe of doubtful cases of property registration of unauthorised constructions and illegal plotting
The Maharashtra state government initiated an in-depth probe of doubtful cases of property registration of unauthorised constructions and illegal plotting. As many as 3,00,000 documents registered at 27 sub registrar’s offices during the last three years are being searched.
The action comes after complaints were made to Mantralaya alleging illegal registrations taking place in the city in connivance with officials.
Inspector-General of Registration and Controller of Stamps, Pune (IGR) Omprakash Deshmukh said, “There were complaints regarding registration of properties of some unauthorised constructions and illegal plotting. The complaint was limited to one or two sub registration offices, but we are verifying and investigating all the 27 offices under our jurisdiction. We are investigating all documents and the investigation is in progress under my supervision and a report will be submitted to the government soon. If the court has stayed a land transaction, then only the IGR office can take action. We are not the department which carries out title verification as it does not fall under the act. It is the responsibility of the property owners to ensure that all their documents are legally verified and authentic.”
Despite repeated attempts state revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat could not be reached for comments.
The issue of investigating the sub registrar’s office gained momentum after an alleged complaint of registration of flats ignoring all norms was brought to the notice of Mantralaya.
Following the complaint, the revenue department ordered an investigation into such type of cases and over 3,00,000 documents are being investigated, officials said.
The IGR office had formed squads which are investigating the RERA number of the real estate developer, and whether the construction of a said project has got a principle approval from the government and whether the land was parcelled into pieces separately before being sold out.
The investigation will continue until March 31 taking into account the voluminous number of documents. The investigators are unearthing details like how the land was divided into small pieces of one guntha each and then sold to the buyers in violation of the rules showing irresponsibility in the discharge of duty.
1,000 bogus registrations investigated in 2020
Earlier, the state government had set up a probe committee to investigate scores of bogus property registrations in violation of the Real Estate Regulation and Development (RERA) Act, 2016. The government had received many complaints in this regard especially that of 1,000 such bogus registrations at the sub-registrar office, Hadapsar on a single day. The government issued government resolution (GR) ordered the inspector general of registration and stamps (IGR) to constitute a squad to investigate the complaint made before the state. The IGR later submitted the report to the state government on December 1, 2020. The squad comprises of deputy inspector general of registration Govind Karad, acting DIG (headquarters) Bharat Garud, joint district registrar of stamps Vijay Bhalerao and joint district registrar Udayraj Chavan. According to the information available, a number of complaints were related to the registrar office (Haveli No 3) in Magarpatta-Hadapsar where scores of documents were registered in complete violation of the Rera act.
