Revenue department suspends 3 officials in east Delhi land scam

The revenue department has unearthed a land scam in east Delhi and has suspended three officers for colluding with land mafia and registering the ownership papers of government land in private names. HT reports.

The revenue department has unearthed a land scam in east Delhi and has suspended three officers for colluding with land mafia and registering the ownership papers of government land in private names.

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The officers include sub-registrar of Preet Vihar sub-registrar office Harish Bajaj, tehsildar Susheel Bharti and patwari Shyam Lal.

According to secretary (revenue) Vijay Dev, the three officers would take money from land grabbers for registering the sale deeds of plots on government and agricultural land in Mandavali, an unauthorised colony, by giving a unique khasra number which did not exist.

The sub-registrar, without even having an authority to do so, would seek a status report from the tehsildar about a particular plot. The tehsildar, with the help of patwari, would give a false status report to the sub-registrar and sale deed would be registered.

Hindustan Times had reported the matter on April 7 (HT Estates) and the revenue department officials acted on the news report and found it true.

The department will also take legal opinion on what should be done with these 154 plots sold to innocent buyers.

Dev accepted that the same modus operandi could have been adopted in other parts of the Capital too. “We are now trying to ascertain if similar modus operandi was adopted in other districts of Delhi too to usurp government land,” revenue secretary Vijay Dev said.